The Piercing Word (Hebrews 4:12)

Hebrews 4:12 and the Need for a High View of Scripture

And turn now to Hebrews chapter four. We're gonna read together verses 12 and 13. For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit of both joints and marrow and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

And there's no creature hidden from his sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of him with whom we have to do. Let's pray together. Father, it is our desire that your word, which is sharp, may be used by the Lord Jesus Christ, the word incarnate, to pierce to the very heart of our soul and spirit and to reveal to us and to you the thoughts and intentions of our hearts.

May we be cut to the quick in every way that you would intend through your word today. Help us to appreciate how these words are true, not only of the written word of God, but also of the Lord Jesus Christ.

That you may be honored and glorified and that our focus and attention and affection may belong to the great triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We ask this in the name of Christ, our Lord and our King.

Amen.

Well, I've been suggesting as we've gone through Hebrews 4 .12 that there is an epidemic in the church today and that epidemic is a low view of scripture. And I don't think that amongst most churches and amongst most Christians, at least in our part of the globe, that we have an adequately high view, and I'm speaking broadly here of scripture.

I don't think that we have an adequately high view of it and there seems to be this lack of confidence in the power and the authority of scripture. And even among churches that will do lip service to the word of God and declare that it is the infallible and inerrant and inspired word of God, that when you look at how that word is handled and how it is preached and how it informs the philosophy of ministry and what they do as a body of believers, that though it is not intentional, that that ends up being nothing more than lip service toward orthodoxy or sort of a hat tip toward orthodoxy.

That they would say, yes, we believe that this is what scripture is and this is what scripture teaches, but then when it gets fleshed out and gets put into the lives of people, scripture ends up being minimized in almost every conceivable way.

Well, it might be that that's the case that I've been making over the last several weeks, but it might be the case then, is it not, that somebody might object and say, well, don't you maybe make too much of scripture?

I mean, you critique other people for making too little of scripture, but isn't it possible that you have too high a view of scripture? That concerning inspiration and inerrancy and infallibility and authority and power and the living nature of scripture, that you put it up on a pedestal just a bit too high and make too much out of it?

Maybe you ought to dial back your enthusiasm for the Bible just a bit. Maybe your view of scripture is not at all warranted by the text itself or by the word of God itself. Maybe you ought to make less than you do out of scripture and not think that it's nearly as important or central as you make it out to be.

It's possible somebody could object to that, but I guess in order to make that case, to determine whether or not you and I have too high or too low a view of scripture, we would have to go back to Jesus and the apostles and ask the question, what was Jesus' view of scripture?

That would really settle the issue, wouldn't it? What is Jesus' view of scripture? And equally telling, what was the apostles' view.

Of scripture?

How did they view the written word of God? And when we go back and we read the gospels and with that question in mind, and we look at how Jesus treated scripture, what we find is that he quoted the Old Testament continuously.

He quoted it as divinely inspired. He quoted it as authoritative. For Jesus of Nazareth, the scriptures, the Old Testament scriptures, were the final authority on every question. When somebody would come to him with a question, how would he respond?

He would quote scripture and he would say, have you not read? Is it not written? Or he would say, scripture says, or it is written, and he would quote the Old Testament. For Jesus, that was the final straw.

That would end the discussion. There was nothing else to say after that. After scripture had been quoted and scripture had weighed in on the subject, there was nothing else to be said. He looked at the Old Testament as a collection of divinely given, divinely inspired, authoritative and powerful writings.

He said, not one jot or tittle of this law shall pass away until it is fulfilled, until he fulfills it. He viewed the entire Old Testament as being written about him. He said, if you will not believe Moses, then you will not believe in me.

If you believe me, you would believe what Moses said because Moses wrote about me. And with the disciples on the road to Emmaus after the resurrection, what did he do? He opened up the law and the prophets and he showed to them all the things in the Old Testament concerning himself.

That was what was authoritative for Jesus. That was the final say, the final word in all matters of dispute. He viewed it as authoritative, as powerful, as living, as God given, as God breathed. That was his view.

How about the apostles? Well, Jesus promised that through the Holy Spirit, by the Holy Spirit, through the apostles, more revelation would be given. And indeed, we see that the apostles did give revelation.

They viewed the Old Testament the same way that Jesus viewed the Old Testament. Reading through the book of Hebrews, would you say that the author of Hebrews has a high or low view of scripture? It's all an exposition of the Old Testament.

It is quoting one passage after another and explaining it and expounding upon it and applying it and using it as a warning. The New Testament authors, the apostles, had very high view of the Old Testament.

They viewed the Old Testament as divinely given, divinely inspired and authoritative. And the final, they viewed it just the way that Jesus did, as the final word on all matters of dispute, all matters of doctrine and practice.

For them, the Old Testament scriptures were the word of God. And the New Testament authors, there's evidence that they believed and knew themselves to be the authors of New Testament revelation. So Peter quotes Paul and refers to Paul's writings.

As scripture.

Paul refers to Luke's writings as scripture. They viewed themselves as the instruments and the authors of divine revelation. And they viewed their own writings, and the church did as well, on par with the Old Testament.

So what was Jesus and the apostles view of scripture?

High or low?

Very high. So it is by looking at the life and the ministry of Jesus and by examining the writings of the apostles that we come to a high view of scripture. And so we have to say that a high view of scripture is a right view of scripture.

And any perspective on scripture that minimizes it or lowers it does detriment to the word of God, and it is a blasphemous assault on the truth that God has given to us. So that is the case I'm seeking to make as we work our way through Hebrews 4, verse 12.

And we have looked so far at the living quality of the word of God and the active or powerful quality of the word of God. And today we're looking at its piercing quality. Hebrews 4, verse 12. The word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

Christ and the Written Word as the Living and Active Sword

I've noticed three things that we've been observing as we go through this, and I would just remind you of this in case this is new to you. Three things that we've been observing. Number one, Jesus Christ is called the word of God in John chapter one and in Revelation chapter 19.

That is a title that is appropriately applied to him. Everything that we have read here in Hebrews 4, verse 12 applies equally to both scripture and to the Lord Jesus Christ. And there is no warrant nor is there any need to suggest that the author has one as opposed to the other in view, and to isolate our treatment of this passage in terms of either the Lord Jesus Christ or the written word.

And so we are taking them both together and we are going through the passage and treating them together as we look at these different qualities. And so that's what we're gonna do today. I'm gonna be kind of flipping back and forth between seeing how this describes the Lord Jesus and how it describes the written word as we work our way through our explanation and understanding of what it means to that the word of God is piercing, that it cuts, that it's sharper than any two-edged sword.

So let's look at that. It says the scripture is sharper than any two-edged sword. This description of the word of God is probably the most difficult one to attach to the Lord Jesus Christ. It's not difficult for us to understand how it is the Lord Jesus Christ is living, because the living one, nor is it difficult for us to understand how that adjective active or powerful would apply to the Lord Jesus Christ, because he is that, he's active and upholds all things by the word of his power.

And he is powerful, he sits at the Father's right hand. All authority and all power in heaven or earth is given to him. But in what sense is he sharp? In what sense is the Lord Jesus Christ sharper than any two-edged sword?

This is probably the most difficult of these adjectives to apply to the Lord Jesus Christ and then say, what does the author have in mind if he has the person of Christ in view, in what way is Christ sharp?

Now, I suggested weeks ago that the person who kind of got me thinking and convinced me that there is a dual focus in this passage was John Owen, the Puritan preacher from the 1600s. So I went back to John Owen's work and I read through the passage that he had describing this.

And here is what Owen says. Owen says that the word sharp here describes the Lord Jesus Christ in respect to the use of his power. Now, that is fitting since the very previous word is the word active or power.

It is that energy or that ability, that power resonant in him to accomplish a certain end. We looked at that last week. And so then the word sharp then would apply to how it is that he uses that power, that activity.

And Owen would suggest that it is the Lord Jesus Christ who uses his word in a piercing and cutting way to cut to the very heart of men and women. So Owen says this way, it is Christ himself who makes the word powerful and sharp.

The principle efficiency is in himself, acting in and with it. That then is what is here intended. It is the spiritual almighty penetrating efficacy of the Lord Jesus Christ in his dealing with the souls and consciences of men by his word and spirit, close quote.

In other words, the word is what it is, and we've been saying this all along, because Christ is who he is, and he uses the word the way that he does. And that is what God has decreed, to use his word in that fashion.

So the cutting power, the cutting nature of the scriptures, it has that function and that power and that ability because that is how Christ uses it. It is the combination, and here probably more than anywhere else in the passage, we see that we have to think in terms of the written word and the incarnate word together at the same time.

These two must and do go together. So it is the Lord Jesus Christ using his word that cuts us to the very heart of our soul and of our spirit. And there is the dividing quality that is intended here in this analogy with the two-edged sword.

A dividing quality that cuts into the division of soul and spirit and of joints and marrow, and we'll get to those illustrations here in just a moment. But I want you to notice that what is being described here is an ability to cut or to divide, to split between two things like a sharp two-edged sword.

The Word of God Divides Believer from Unbeliever

Now, in the context of our warning passage, I want to remind you of what we're dealing with. We're dealing with the warning passage. Remember, it started back in chapter three, verse seven, and he uses the illustration of the wilderness generation from Psalm 95 and Numbers chapter 14.

And he has that wilderness generation and their disobedience in mind as he's working his way through this. And so this warning passage is intended to say to his readers, there are among you men and women who think you are saved, who pretend to be saved, but are not actually believers at all.

And you have not yet entered into that rest. And he is imploring them that just like the wilderness generation, people who were among the people of God, they were there, but they had hearts full of rebellion and disobedience and unbelief.

And in their unbelief, they perished. And so he is addressing the congregation using that as an example and suggesting that there are people within the congregation who had not yet entered into that rest.

They had not yet found salvation in Jesus Christ. And so in the context of the warning passage, here's what the implication of the two-edged sword means. It is sometimes difficult, if not impossible, for us from our vantage point to tell who among us is a true believer and who is not.

That's nearly impossible. Because it is possible for people to look like Christians and to act like Christians and to talk like Christians and pretend to be Christians. And it's difficult for us to know who are the real McCoys and who are the fakers, who are the believers and who are the make-believers, who's putting up pretenses and who has genuinely been saved.

That is impossible for us to discern, who actually is of us and not just among us. But it is not difficult at all for the Lord to discern that. He knows. He knows, and with the skill of a gifted surgeon and with the precision of a sharp scalpel, He is able to cut the line between believer and unbeliever.

He is able to cut past all of the charade and all of the shenanigans and all of the pretend and get right to the heart of the issue and know who among us is a believer and who is not a believer. Because He is that sharp two-edged sword, He is able to divide and to cut and to know, these are my people and these are not my people.

And on judgment day, there will be no pretense that will go past His all-searching, all-knowing eyes and make it into heaven who are not actually His people. Because He is the knife, He is the sword, able to cut between the two, to divide the wheat from the chaff, to divide the sheep from the goats, to divide the believer from the make-believer.

And on that last day, He is the judge who will do that very thing. So just as in the wilderness generation, there were people there who were unbelievers, the author is using that as an illustration, saying there are people amongst every church who are unbelievers and the Lord knows those who are His.

And He cuts between the believer and the unbeliever. He is the sharp two-edged sword, dividing His people from those who will receive judgment. There's another allusion here to the warning passage back in this warning passage.

Sorry, there's another allusion here with the sword back to the wilderness generation. We talked about the wilderness generation, how they came up to the edge of the promised land and they wouldn't go in.

They rebelled in unbelief and said, no, we're not going in. And they rebelled against Moses and Joshua and Caleb. And so God swore, you shall not enter my rest. And He told them this entire generation will perish in the wilderness.

All their bodies will fall here. 40 years you will be judged here until your children, they will enter into the land of promise, but you shall never see it. We talked about how that was a warning for us and encouragement for us to enter into the rest rather than to respond as they did in disobedience and unbelief.

Well, there's an allusion here, I think, with the sword and the reference to the sword back to the event that followed immediately that incident in Numbers chapter 14. So the author in this warning passage, remember he quotes Psalm 95, which is a reflection upon Numbers chapter 14.

And so Moses, after he announces the judgment of God, this entire generation will fall in the wilderness. Not one of you will enter into God's rest. The very next thing that happens is this in Numbers chapter 14, beginning at verse 39.

Listen to this. When Moses spoke these words to all the sons of Israel, the people mourned greatly. In the morning, however, they rose up early and went up to the ridge of the hill country saying, here we are, we have indeed sinned, but we will go up to the place which the Lord has promised.

But Moses said, why then are you transgressing the commandment of the Lord when it will not succeed? Do not go up or you will be struck down before your enemies for the Lord is not among you. For the Amalekites and the Canaanites will be there in front of you, and you will fall by the sword in as much as you have turned back from following the Lord.

And the Lord will not be with you. But they went up heedlessly to the ridge of the hill country, neither the ark of the covenant of the Lord nor Moses left the camp. Then the Amalekites and the Canaanites who lived in that hill country came down and struck them and beat them down as far as Hormat.

Very next incident, after the children of Israel neglected to go into the land of promise, they said, all right, we'll go. Moses said, no, you're not gonna go. God has sworn you will not enter that rest.

No, we got this. They went up on the hill country and Moses said, don't go in, you're gonna be struck down by what?

The sword.

In other words, some of those very people who rebelled against Moses and would not go into the land of promise tried to subvert the curse of God upon that generation by entering in anyway, and that in itself was an act of disobedience.

So the one act of disobedience was followed by yet another act of disobedience. And the result of that was at the hand of the Amalekites and the Canaanites, God struck them down with a physical sword.

And the intention or illusion seems to be similar here. On judgment day, those who will not enter into that rest will be struck down by the sword, but it will not be a physical sword at the hand of the Amalekites or the Canaanites.

It will be the one who is the word of God, who is the sword, and he will slay the nations with the rod of his mouth. He will strike down the wicked. He will strike down and punish the disobedient and the rebellious and the unbelieving.

That seems to be the illusion. So it applies to the wilderness generation, but it applies to us as well. Look at the analogy of the two-edged sword. Notice that the author of Hebrews describes this as a two-edged sword, not a one-edged sword.

In other words, it's not just a sword, it's a two-edged sword, and not just any two-edged sword, but what? Sharper than any two-edged sword. There's a certain irony in that I'm preaching to this day because I cut my nose this morning while shaving with a two-edged razor.

I have a safety razor, which has got an edge on both sides. So when I told my son today that I cut my nose, while shaving, he said, how in the world did you accomplish that? You have to, you flip it upside down and hold it a certain way, and actually, it's not that, I mean, just in doing this with a two-edged sword, it cuts both directions.

So I went up, not cutting, but I ended up cutting before I came down. Well, the word of God is sharper. My wife is just holding her teeth like that, just the thought of me cutting it. It wouldn't stop bleeding, so I had to put super glue on it.

So if you wonder what, like, what did I fall down and hit? That's what that's about. I cut my nose with a sharp two-edged razor this morning. Scripture is sharper than my two-edged razor, and not just any two-edged razor, but every and all two-edged razors.

It has that ability to cut. As quickly and effortlessly and easy as it was for me to slice through the cartilage of my nose, the word of God slices through the unbelief and the rebellion and the hard-hearted disobedience and the fat of evil men's hearts.

It pierces to the very center of it. It's a sharp two-edged sword. Now, just the analogy itself is worthy of us giving some consideration as to what the author means by a two-edged sword. What is he trying to picture?

What about Scripture is like a two-edged sword? When we see an analogy in Scripture, we ask, what is the analogy, what is the parallel that the author is intending to draw here? There are two that I would suggest to you.

The first is suggested by Charles Spurgeon. He said that all of Scripture is sharp. That's what the author is intending to show, that it is all of Scripture, all of its parts, whether we're talking about the doctrinal section or the prophecy or the genealogies, all of Scripture has this cutting sharpness to it.

Spurgeon used the word, every edge is sharp. It is sharp all around. All of Scripture has this capacity, this ability, this sharpness to it. Sometimes we think that the doctrinal sections are really good.

You get into Romans and Galatians and Ephesians, that's the sharp edge of the sword, but the genealogies and the Psalms and Ecclesiastes, not so much. Those are not the sharp portions. The sharp portions are these other portions and Spurgeon would make the case, no, it is all of Scripture that has this capacity to be sharp and cutting.

I have been cut to the quick reading a genealogy, a genealogy. You say, how in the world do you cut to the heart reading a genealogy? Because I read that one man was born and he lived so many years and he had a son and then he lived so many years and he died and his son lived so many years and had a son and then he lived so many years and he died and that son lived so many years and had a son and what do all of these men have in common?

They all die and I've got to the end of a genealogy and thought to myself, such is the end of all men. Like every person in that list, I have lived, I have had sons, I will live a little bit more and then I will die.

And like every man in that list, my name will be added to a list of people in a genealogy in a family tree somewhere and everything I have done and everything I have said and everything I have accomplished, all of it will be lost to the sands of times.

All of it will be swallowed up and forgotten and my name will just be a list on a page amongst my descendants sometime in the distant future.

That's it.

And cut to the quick and then realize that all of that because of sin. All of that because we have rebelled. That's true of me and true of all people because of what Adam did in the garden. And so now because of that, because death comes upon all men, for all have sinned, all of us need a savior and that is what God has provided in the person of Christ.

All of that I get from a genealogy. I get to the end of a genealogy, I said this is, this is it. This is the end of all men and this is the end of me. I have been soberly humbled by genealogies in Scripture.

Now if a genealogy can do that, all of Scripture can do that. It's sharp in its every part, including the book of Ecclesiastes. You were cut to the quick by Ecclesiastes on occasion, right, please tell me it's true.

Just once or twice at least, it cut you? I hope it did. And so not only is Scripture, all of Scripture in its every part have this capacity to cut and to divide and to slice and to penetrate. The second part of this analogy is that Scripture really has the ability to cut both ways, like for instance, a two-edged razor.

Meaning that it has two functions that it accomplishes at the same time. It cuts both directions. And this is how this is true of Scripture. The word of God is able to cut men down in order to save them.

And the word of God is able to cut men down in order to judge them. It accomplishes both of those functions. Today, we use the analogy of a two-edged sword to say much the same thing. We say, for instance, that technology is a two-edged sword.

Right, that this invention is a two-edged sword. We have nuclear power, which is clean and great and efficient, but we can destroy whole cities with it. So it's a two-edged sword. And what we mean by that is that an advancement or a technological advancement has a boon to mankind and also a life-threatening danger to mankind.

And so it is with so many things in this sinful world that the things which serve to make our lives easier and better, at the same time, threaten our very existence in so many ways and can serve to destroy us and enslave us.

That's what we mean when we use the term two-edged sword. It cuts both directions. It's good and bad. Well, when Scripture does this, Scripture is a two-edged sword in the sense that it is able to save and it is able to judge.

It is in the word of God that I read of my own pride, my own self-righteousness, my own unworthiness, my own wickedness and iniquity. It is in Scripture that I read of the judgment of God upon unbelievers and unbelief and of my need for a Savior.

It is in Scripture that I read of a Savior who was given, who died and who rose again to bear the penalty for me and offers me his righteousness. And it is Scripture that commands me to repent and to believe that message lest I perish everlastingly.

And so the word of God cuts to the heart of prideful man and puts us naked, standing bare and open before the judgment seat of God without any excuse, with our mouths stopped and all of our proclamations of our own self-righteousness and our own glory utterly silenced in need of a Savior.

Scripture does that. It cuts us down in order that we might be saved. The Scripture does the opposite as well. It cuts us down to judges. Because if you will not find your rest in Jesus Christ on that final day, you will be judged according to Scripture and the standard will be the righteousness of the word of God.

The standard will not be how many good works have you done or did you really try to improve yourself while you were here or how many people did you help? That will not be the standard. The books will be open and we will be judged according to the things written in the books.

And we will be shown to be liars and thieves and blasphemers and fornicators and adulterers and greedy and wicked idolaters. That is what we will be shown to be on that final day by the word of God. And the same word which cuts men down to save them will cut men down to destroy them and to punish them.

And that word is the Lord Jesus Christ and he will use his written word. Revelation 19 says when Christ comes back, a two-edged sword goes out of his mouth and with it he slays the nations. He destroys them simply by the word of his mouth.

And on judgment day, that word will destroy the wicked. The word of God cuts off pride from men, they may be saved or it cuts down prideful men that they may be judged. It has that two-edged function.

It cuts both directions. And it cuts deep. Scripture is that sword that cuts deep and the Lord Jesus Christ is that word of God, that sword that also cuts us deep to the very center of our core, our being.

Soul and Spirit, Joints and Marrow

Look at the two analogies that he gives of joints and marrow, sorry, of soul and spirit and of joints and marrow. Notice that one is spiritual. One deals with spiritual elements, soul and spirit. One deals with something that's entirely physical, joints and marrow.

So there is a spiritual analogy, there is a physical analogy. These run parallel to each other and the intention of both of these is to show that something is mingled from a human perspective that cannot be divided, but God himself knows exactly how to divide it.

It is so sharp that it cuts to the very heart of our being. And the first analogy is the spiritual one of soul and spirit. Now, oftentimes Hebrews 4, verse 12, this reference to the division of soul and spirit is sometimes brought into the discussion, the theological discussion as to whether or not man is a dichotomous being or a trichotomous being.

Those are just big words and you can feel free to use them all day long if you want, dichotomous being or a trichotomous being. Dichotomous being meaning that we are composed of two, di, parts, that we are composed of two parts, a material part and an immaterial part, body and soul slash spirit.

That's the dichotomous view, that our immaterial self is the soul slash spirit and that these are the same thing and that they are indistinguishable. The trichotomous is someone who believes that man is body and then soul and spirit, that there are three parts to man.

And they make some fine distinctions between soul and spirit in an attempt to show that certain functions and capacities that we have in our immaterial self are functions of the soul and certain capacities and functions of our immaterial self are functions and capacities of the spirit.

And so they divide between the soul and the spirit and see us as a tripart or a trichotomous being, man. Now, I am not a trichotomist, I am a dichotomous. Trichotomous will point to Hebrews chapter four, verse 12 to suggest that there is a division here that exists and that we can make it.

I think that the author is actually trying to make the opposite point. We cannot divide between soul and spirit, that's the point. The word of God knows what parts of us belong to the soul part of us and the spirit part of us, but in the human perspective, they are indistinguishable and they cannot be separated because these are the same thing.

Now, as a dichotomous, somebody who's over here on this side, I would suggest to you that a trichotomous has a very difficult time being consistent in his view of mankind when he begins to describe the immaterial elements of what we are and what we do.

Because though they would say, well, the soul has these certain functions and the spirit has these certain functions and they try to make a hard fast distinction between them. When you start talking about our immaterial selves and what we feel and what we do and the emotions and loves that we have, it's very difficult to remain consistent because they end up talking about these things that belong to both soul and spirit, almost as if they are used synonymously.

And guess what? In scripture, the term spirit and soul are both used virtually synonymously when speaking of mankind, virtually synonymously of the immaterial self of us. When speaking of humans, soul and spirit are used interchangeably, almost as complete synonyms to describe the immaterial aspect of us.

So that is why I am a dichotomous. But I'm not gonna get off on that rabbit trail after I've already got back from that rabbit trail. I can say that we're not gonna get off on that rabbit trail. It's a nice discussion for another day.

But for our point here today, what is the author trying to say? He's not trying to give us a physiological anatomical assessment of human nature. Instead, he is trying to say that our soul slash spirit, mingled and interchanged being one thing as it is, the word of God has the power, the cutting ability, the sharpness to distinguish between those two things and to cut to the very heart of the foundation, the core, the fundamental element of what makes man, man.

Our soul and our spirit to the very heart, beyond all of the charade, beyond all that we say, beyond all that we think, down to the very core of who we are, our motives, our thoughts, our intentions, all of it is laid bare by the sharp word of God.

Lord Jesus Christ does that cutting and he does it with scripture. And the second analogy is a physical one, a bones and marrow of joints. And the idea is here that the knife cuts to the very heart, not only of who we are fundamentally in the very nature of our being, soul and spirit, but in a physical sense, this knife is sharp and cuts to the very heart of who we are even in a physical sense.