The Blood of Sprinkling

But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel. (Hebrews 12:22-24, NKJV).

Now Cain talked with Abel his brother; and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother and killed him. Then the LORD said to Cain, “Where is Abel your brother?” He said, “I do not know. Am I my brother’s keeper?” And He said, “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood cries out to Me from the ground. “So now you are cursed from the earth, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. (Genesis 4:8-11, NKJV).

And Moses took half the blood and put it in basins, and half the blood he sprinkled on the altar. (Exodus 24:6, NKJV).

And Moses took the blood, sprinkled it on the people, and said, “This is the blood of the covenant which the LORD has made with you according to all these words.” (Exodus 24:8, NKJV).

‘For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul.’ (Leviticus 17:11, NKJV).

Abel's blood was shed at the beginning of human history and marked the rapid decline of humanity from perfection to sin. It spoke of condemnation and guilt, crying out a curse upon not only Cain, but all mankind.

Blood is a complex and marvelous liquid organ necessary for life. It is the hallmark of mortality, central to human and animal existence. To denote something as the "lifeblood" of something else is to speak of that something's essence, without which it would not be the thing that it is.

God designed human mortal life so that blood is synonymous with life itself. He then ordained that blood, and blood alone, would atone, or cover over, sin. Without the shedding of blood there is no atonement.

For centuries, ancient Judaism floated upon a sea of sacrificial blood, each sacrifice graphically picturing the horrible consequences of rebellion against the Creator. Each innocent animal slaughtered to pay the temporary price for human sin, from the animal slain to obtain the skins required to cover Adam and Eve's nakedness, to the rituals of the Jewish Law.

All these pointing forward to the ultimate sacrifice of God's own Son that did far more than merely atone for sin. It took away the sin of the whole world.

From that moment forward, no blood sacrifice would ever be required again. For the shedding and sprinkling of Christ's blood on the Cross silenced the cries and curses of Abel's blood, replacing it with the triumphant call of forgiveness and salvation through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

The modern world finds these equations primitive expressions of shame and superstition. Many look upon the rituals involved as barbarous and ghastly, congratulating themselves for an enlightened perspective that would never take such transactions with Deity seriously.

How could a God of love, they say, be so heartless and savage and cruel as to require the killing of innocent animals to assuage His tyrannical anger?

But in so thinking, they fail to grasp the incredible mercy these substitutionary deaths entailed. And they fail to comprehend both the authority and holiness of God, Himself. In essence, they deny the very God they presumptuously question, despite any supposed profession of "a belief" in God.

For if God is God, He is who He has revealed Himself to be in Scripture: Creator and Judge. He is the omnipotent Sovereign declaring the end from the beginning, fulfilling the purposes of His will in every aspect of existence. He is, in fact, the very well-spring of existence itself.

The writer of Hebrews reminds us here that rather than demand each sinner's blood to atone (not take away) his or her own sins, God, in unfathomable mercy, grace and love, placed His own beloved and perfect Son on the Cross, to wash clean in His blood an entire planet of rebellious creatures, and to bless, rather than curse. Better things, indeed.

As in most instances, the self-justifying questions the world poses about God and His perfect plan of redemption focuses on the thinnest surface veneer, and not the magnificent substance. God ordained animal slaughter to provide a way for His perfect justice to be satisfied (at least temporarily) without requiring human slaughter. 

The real question is this: How could a God of perfect righteousness and justice allow sinful humanity to continue to exist AT ALL? And the answer lies in His Son, who was the Lamb of God slain before the foundation of the world.

For those who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, the judgment of sin has already taken place. The requisite death sentence has already been carried out and the ensuing eternal punishment accomplished on the Cross.

Those who willfully and pridefully reject the Son, will pay the price of their own sin - every thought, word and deed - forever.

Jesus the Mediator

But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel. (Hebrews 12:22-24, NKJV).

The Biblical definition of mediator is "one who intervenes between two, either in order to make or restore peace and friendship, or form a compact, or for ratifying a covenant." The Lord Christ aligns with this definition perfectly.

He is the Intercessor, the Divine Representative of man to God and God to man. As High Priest, as He who always lives to make intercession for us, He fulfills, and is the epitome of, that ancient priestly role, established by God before the foundation of the world for precisely that purpose.

And He intervenes in the affairs of men and demons, redeeming the first from the influence and captivity of the second.

And He is the sacrificial barrier between the righteous wrath of a holy God, and the inexorable sinfulness of fallen mankind utterly deserving of that wrath.

On the Cross, He reconciled God to humanity, paying the eternal price of sin in propitiation to an eternal God, restoring the broken fellowship between creature and Creator, making peace, and confirming the new contract between God and His creation - the New Covenant based on faith instead of unattainable performance.

And it is to this selfless Mediator that the writer of Hebrews exhorts us to come, not as criminals (though we surely are), not as penitents (for the price has been paid), but boldly, as beloved children, as siblings and coheirs. 

Without His finished work on the Cross, we would be forever hopeless. Thus, coming to Him in faith is the only means of escape from a destiny befitting our intrinsic evil, yet simultaneously beyond comprehension.

The unbelieving world hates Him. It must, for everything about Him convicts the world of sin, and unequivocally demonstrates the existence of a holy God to whom we are accountable; a God who so loved the world that He sacrificed His Son so that we might escape the wrath He himself will pour out on a rebellious world populated by incorrigibly rebellious subjects.

Our Mediator made possible the abrogation of the old contract between mankind and God, filled with impossible clauses of performance-based life and earned blessing, and in its place, ratified that New Covenant, based solely on faith.

Without that we are all doomed forever to an unthinkable place of punishment that never ends. Without that it would be infinitely better never to have been born.

This truth is utterly repugnant to those who reject Christ. The doctrine of Hell is deemed primitive, unhealthy, depressing, and a deletorious remnant of a less-enlightened archetypal history.

But if it is true, and it must be for God to be who He has revealed Himself to be, then faith in Jesus is the only way of escape.

Jesus is the only hope for an existence filled with banal and senseless evil. His coming again is the only thing that will make right all that is, and has been, so terribly, terribly wrong.

He is the only way of salvation. He is the only one that gives meaning and purpose to the horrors of this life, and provides each one of us with the means to attain beauty from ashes, to make our valley of tears an eternally life-giving spring.

Look around. Look into the past. If mankind is your only hope, then in order to experience any joy at all you must either bury your head deeply in the sands of denial, or cast aside all reason and rationality, and trust that we ourselves have the power to make this world a better place - to so transform the hearts and behavior of our fellow citizens that all propensity for evil is eradicated, or at least, prevented.

History, and the likely course of future events, argues against that hope.

But if the Lord Jesus Christ is your hope, the One who demonstrated His love toward us by taking upon Himself the penalty we so richly deserve, even while we were yet sinners, then despite the sometimes impenetrable darkness of earthly existence, there is joy inexpressible and hope unquenchable.

Not because of us, but because of Him.

The Spirits of just Men Made Perfect

But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel. (Hebrews 12:22-24, NKJV).

Sandwiched between the Judge of All and the Mediator of the new covenant (more on Him in a subsequent post), are the spirits of just men made perfect.

This is fitting in so many ways, and with lyrical precision, the writer of Hebrews places the departed saints awaiting the culmination of all things right where they are the safest and most secure, sheltered between the Judge who has declared them innocent ("just") and the One whose sacrifice made their reprieve possible.

Who are these saints? And how they been made perfect ("complete")? These are every man, woman, and child who has died in faith, believing that Christ is Lord and Savior, and who are abiding in Heaven until the return of the King. They have been forgiven and thus made sinless and righteous (perfect). Their access to God is unencumbered by the old nature, or fleshly life, or the cares of this world. 

They are more alive than ever before and eagerly await the Resurrection when their spiritual forms will once again be clothed in physical bodies, this time glorified, ageless, impervious, and immortal.

What you must guard against here is the cynicism born of life in this often miserable world that says such an outcome is "too good to be true". We know very little of good or truth in this age - only that which has been provided for us by God through His Word and through His Son.

Our conceptions of Heaven are limited and besmirched. The modern church is defective and anemic in so many ways, not the least of which is its general neglect of Heaven.

It is presented as either a vaporous realm of clouds and harps, or an unknowable amorphous arena of pure spirit - neither of which has any resemblance to the truth of this place as revealed in Scripture. 

Undermining Heaven is effective propaganda in the long war against God, but the author of Hebrews has no such erroneous filters. He understands the magnificence of the vibrant, fully-dimensioned life that is the dwelling place of the saints after death.

Think of it as a vast, immeasurable, life and light-filled universe adjacent to our own puny, fallen one, currently invisible to us, but poised to overtake and infinitely renew our own.

The laws which govern this unimaginably good place are as immutable as the laws which govern existence here, but are of an essentially different character. Nothing in this universe, in its un-glorified form, can exist in that one. It must be transformed on a level that transcends the mere molecular, though it includes it, and encompasses the very real but (to us) incorporeal sphere of the moral and spiritual.

To survive for even a nanosecond in Heaven, we must be remade, utterly, completely, irrevocably - so much so that the first step has been described as being "born again" in the Spirit.

Nicodemus, the Teacher of Israel so long ago, was gifted with this truth and reacted as do many thinking beings by asking the simple but profound question of how can a man be reborn? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb?

Jesus gave Him answer, the essence of which explains how the spirits of just men are made perfect. The transformation from sinner to saint, from dead in trespasses and sins to exquisitely, immortally alive, is accomplished through the one named energy of salvation: faith.

But it is not merely faith, nor is it faith in faith, but it is faith in a singular and utterly unique and worthy Person - Jesus Christ, King of Kings, Lord of Lords, Savior, Redeemer, and Friend.

This conversion of unbelief (our default condition) to transformative belief, is that which will guarantee our final renovation into beings that can survive this heavenly realm. Without it, we are too fragile, too cumbersome, too weighed down with iniquity to continue our existence in any proximity to the Giver of Life and Love. 

Without it we are fit for only one place once the remaking of our universe is complete - a place as far removed from God as is possible. A place in the outermost darkness, completely immolated in the fierce coldness of ultimate isolation. We call this place Hell.

Hell is Heaven's antithesis in every conceivable way. As we may have difficulty believing in the soaring goodness of heaven, so too we may be unable to fully grasp the crushing, illimitable despair of Hell.

Both are true, regardless of our feelings or intellectual smugness. Both are presented to us by a merciful and living God who loved us so magnificently that He sent His Son to provide a way for us to be conformed into His image, that we may live forever in fellowship with the Source of all that is good.

Otherwise, we will exists as far from Him as can be… forever in torment.

This present earth in this present time is our opportunity to become something unimaginably better - not through our own puny efforts, but through faith in what God has done to redeem us.

We have until we die, or Christ returns.

If we have not appropriated His sacrifice on our behalf by then, our fate will be sealed.

If we have, then we will join the numberless multitude in Heaven and be joyously counted among those who have been made perfect and complete through the blood of the Lamb.

God the Judge of All

But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel. (Hebrews 12:22-24, NKJV).

Believers are exhorted to come to Mount Zion, to the city of the Living God, to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn, and now to God the judge of all.

Notice the invitations and the dichotomy between their precursors before Christ. Mount Sinai, the precursor to Mount Zion, was a place of darkness and tempest and death under the Law. To come to it, to even touch it, was to receive summary execution, and to live according to the Law was an impossibility meant to teach our unequivocal need for a Savior.

In contrast, Mount Zion is a place of eternal life in the heavenly Jerusalem where grace, not Law is operative - the grace that comes through faith in Christ's death and Resurrection as Lord and Savior.

Now, we are boldly invited to come to God who is judge of all. This is an invitation fraught with danger and the certainty of punishment, if - and this is the key point - the invitee is guilty. But our guilt has been washed away by Christ's sacrifice. We have been justified - declared innocent - by His death, and the punishment we deserve has been placed on Him in our place. 

Coming to the Judge, then, under these conditions, and among other things, serves to confirm, not our punishment, but our reprieve. When we stand before God, our sins have been imputed to Christ, and paid for on His Cross. In their place, His righteousness has been imputed to us, and we stand guiltless and free before God.

This is an invitation that makes sense only for the believer, for God IS the judge of all, and without Christ, we are all guilty before Him, and will receive eternal punishment.

The world hates such thoughts, and hates God and the true people of God because judgment is to be avoided at all costs, and it is the fear of judgment that motivates every aspect of human behavior without Christ.

This hatred takes many forms, from legalism to fanaticism to hedonism to materialism to naturalism. 

The legalist is so afraid of judgment that he or she lives according to a stringent checklist of do's and don'ts, which must be adhered to at all costs, and which forms the basis of judgment for everyone else not so shackled.

The fanatic religionist desperately attempts to annihilate all other influences and people that are perceived to be displeasing to a divine, graceless tyrant whose every dictate and tenent of doctrine must be absolutely obeyed, while those who refuse to follow suit must be destroyed.

The hedonist rejects all external morality and follows the deadly course of self-gratification, despising all things and people perceived as obstacles to his own pleasure.

The materialist worships not a sovereign Deity but the forces of intellect and so-called science, believing that judgment is an unscientific myth blindly held by lesser intellects.

And the naturalist worships the creature rather than the Creator, able to see the value of the made, without reference or acknowledgement of the Maker, and holding in contempt all who are not likewise enlightened.

Underlying all these antiGod philosophies and lifestyles is a gut wrenching terror of judgment feeding a hatred of all that even hints at such an end.

Divine judgment must be denied or avoided at all costs and the hatred of it makes perfect sense for everyone who WILL NOT accept the forgiveness of guilt offered in Christ.

Vehement rebellion occurs because every human being KNOWS he or she is guilty before God and, in pride and terror, must go to whatever lengths necessary to continue living under the inevitable sentence of eternal death without being paralyzed with fear.

But the writer of Hebrews is extolling in brilliant and concise fashion, a better way, a new and living way, available through Christ and His loving redemptive work.

The contrast between the way of Christ and the way of the world could not be more stark.

It is the "bottom line". Without Jesus Christ all is lost by default. With Him, nothing good is ever lost.

Without Christ, life is worse than futile - it is the gateway into everlasting torment. Thus, He Himself declares it would be better never to have been conceived.

With Christ, no matter what happens in this life, we, as children of God, inherit everything that is Christ's by virtue of our relationship with God the Father through Him.

But first we must recognize our helplessness and hopelessness. We must surrender our broken and perverse will to His, coming in faith to the Cross, knowing it is the only remedy, the only way of reprieve.

For many that is a surrender that is considered far too costly.

Ironically, it is only through such surrender that victory over sin and death is achieved.

Registered in Heaven

But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel. (Hebrews 12:22-24, NKJV).

Peace can be hard to come by in this life. Not just external peace, that kind where nobody is actively at war with you or engaged in overt hostilities, but internal peace, as well; that peace that enables you to sleep at night without anxiety or fretfulness.

By understanding where Christ has led us by His sacrifice and our faith in Him, the writer of Hebrews is adding layer upon layer of reasons for peace, especially that internal sort. 

We are no longer under the curse of the law, He has led us past Mount Sinai and its integral darkness and tempest and death penalty, we are destined for an eternal dwelling place - the heavenly Jerusalem - the likes of which we can barely imagine, and we are guaranteed fellowship with angels - magnificent and powerful supernatural beings who stand before God and minister to us, His children and the heirs of salvation.

Beyond that, we are part of the general assembly and church of the firstborn, and have, by faith, an irrevocable membership. Whether or not this general assembly refers to the Old Testament faithful who died believing in God's promises, or is something else, it is clear that this group, along with the church of the firstborn - clearly specifying New Testament believers - are registered in heaven.

Think of it as an exclusive reservation, or legal roster, or an indelible census of heaven's inhabitants. However you picture it, it is a list from which, once on it, your name cannot be removed.

By professing Christ as your savior and acknowledging in your deepest heart your dependence on Him to save you from the penalty of sin, you obtain this inviolable citizenship. You can never be deported or disenfranchised. Your true home is someplace you have not yet been, but for which you were born or, more precisely, reborn. And unlike any earthly home, it can never be destroyed or violated or repossessed.

As a lifelong earth dweller, you may find it next to impossible to place your hope and trust in a place and Person you have not seen, but that is exactly what faith asks us to do. No, more than that - it commands us to do. And it is the longing of every human heart.

That is why being anxious is a sin (guilty as charged), as is worrying (guilty) and fretting (guilty). All these are expressions of lack of faith, and, in essence, are lodging complaints against God and His uniquely perfect will for each one of us.

I find living worry-free an exhausting challenge in my own life. To avoid the anxiety, I typically end up taking things in my own hands, not because of a leading from the Lord, but because I just want "it" over with as quickly as possible. This, too, is sin, and an almost certain recipe for exacerbating whatever the situation may be.

There is a fine line (from my faulty perspective) between "waiting on the Lord" and irresponsible inaction. The ONLY solution is to be in such close fellowship with Him, always, that His voice is heard over and above the tumult of our own sinful hearts, and the so-called wisdom of the world.

In turn, this is ONLY possible by determinedly spending time in His word and in prayer, both of which are not obligations, but privileges bestowed upon us by His grace and mercy.

Another stumbling block I find easy to trip over is subsequently condemning myself for my obvious and egregious lack of faith. This is spectacularly unhelpful in that it can initiate a downward spiral: anxiety = condemnation = more anxiety = more condemnation, and so on - a perfect trap guaranteed to prolong the agony.

The good news in this, and in every trial we face, is that the Lord is gracious and knows that while our spirit is willing, our flesh is weak. Jesus, of course, says it best:

“Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. “Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. “For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30, NKJV).

We must understand, He implores us to understand, that these are not just words, but divine promises. Our registration in the heavenly realm has been purchased by Christ Himself on the Cross. It was neither easy nor cheap. It cost God dearly, as he considers each of us a pearl beyond price.

It is easy to believe in the sunshine, and a life of ease is an untested life, built upon an untested faith. I suspect that many of us know of those who have fallen away because their profession of belief was based, not on a broken spirit and a contrite heart, but on an unspoken deal-making mentality. 

When they felt that God had not kept up His part of the bargain, because of hardship or loss or dissatisfaction, they turned away from the only true hope available to a hopeless mankind. That is tragic, indeed.

If you are worried or fretful or anxious, hide Paul's loving exhortation to the Philippians in your heart:

Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:6, 7, NKJV).

An Innumerable Company of Angels

But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel. (Hebrews 12:22-24, NKJV).

Instead of a mountain that may not be touched, a burden of performance that cannot be met, an assembly of terrified sinners surrounded by blackness and darkness and tempest, and an earthly city which served as the palest shadow of its heavenly counterpart (even in its halcyon days under David and Solomon), the New Covenant brings us to a very different destination to be in fellowship with our God.

Through faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, we come to a mountain filled with glory, majesty, light and life, a city not of this Creation, and, instead of a congregation of unrighteous sinners, an innumerable company of angels.

The Bible says many things about angels. They were created before mankind. They are powerful and immortal. Those who retained their first estate are holy, worshipful and serve the living God with fidelity and fervency. A third of them rebelled, led by the archangel Lucifer, and are forever condemned with no chance of redemption. 

They can appear as beings of light or as human beings. They are messengers and harbingers, warriors and nursemaids, and they look upon human redemption as a marvelous mystery, astounded by the mercy and grace of God our being saved entails.

While not of this world they can be in this world, and have intervened in human history on many occasions. Angels are glorious in power and can instill in mere mortals an urge to worship which must be denied. Neither are they to be prayed to or in any way mistaken for Divine. 

One day, born again Christians will judge them.

Modern skeptics view angels with a kind of condescending dismissal, relegating them to fairy tales or wishful thinking. In their arrogant intellectual superiority, these unbelievers discount any belief in these spiritual beings as symptomatic of mental weakness or faulty character or ignorant superstition. They do the same with Satan.

That is of no matter, for a thing's reality is utterly independent of any opinion any fallen human being may hold.

In the verse above, among other things, this innumerable company of angels serves as a heavenly welcoming throng, celebrating the entrance of even the lowliest saved sinner. 

I picture these magnificent beings as embodying all the characteristics we attribute to noble heroes of old - self-sacrificing, courageous, willfully subservient to their God and King, filled with immeasurable joy on our behalf.

So then, as Christians, not only will we be citizens of the most unimaginable Kingdom, residing in an unimaginably glorious city, but we will also be in joyous company with beings beyond our current ability to fully comprehend. And they will look upon us as treasures.

And that is just the start. There is much more.

The Heavenly Jerusalem

But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel. (Hebrews 12:22-24, NKJV).

Why Jerusalem? 

Not too long ago, this earthly city commemorated its 3000th year. Did you get that? 3000 years! And I write "commemorated", not "celebrated", because there is little from the human perspective that Jerusalem can celebrate in these troubled times.

In essence, Jerusalem is at the center of a cosmic battle between God and man. It is a small municipality, as far as dimensions go, in a nation the size of New Jersey, and yet - and yet - it is the focus of the three major Monotheistic religions with billions of adherents worldwide. It is the epicenter of rancid hatred and desperate desire. It is all these things precisely, and only, because God has so ordained it from before the foundation of the world.

There is nothing special about Israel or Jerusalem except that God has put His seal upon her. He has called her the "apple of His eye". He has called her the place of His eternal throne, and He has used her as both a symbol and a foreshadowing of the promised heavenly City of Peace, for peace is the fundamental meaning of the city's name.

(If you doubt the perspicacity of Scripture or the very existence of God, look to Jerusalem. She is ground zero of literally thousands of Biblical prophecies, all of which - all of which - have either been fulfilled in the past, or will soon be fulfilled in the present or near future.)

We, who are the Children of God by faith, have come to this city of the Living God, this Heavenly Jerusalem, by His invitation; really by His imploring us to come, so that we can obtain the destiny, and receive the eternal inheritance, that is ours by faith in Christ.

Do not take this for granted. The earthly counterparts to Mount Zion and this heavenly city are fraught with danger and death. When the Law came forth on Mount Sinai, to come near that place, to even touch it, was a capital crime resulting in summary execution, and the earthly Jerusalem is a battle-scarred place bloodily divided by the nations on the world stage. These are places not of peace and invitation, but war and prohibition.

In their symbolizing the eternal promises of God they are shown as stark contrasts to the majesty and security of what Christ's death on the Cross has put freely within our reach. Unlike the Jews of history, and unlike those today who seek salvation by the works of the flesh, relying upon their own righteousness, the entry price into our destiny has been paid in full for us by the Savior Himself. Our reservations are irrevocable; our right of entrance guaranteed. The result is not death, but life.

This is what we have in Christ. This is the refrain of the Book of Hebrews: the superiority of Christ in every conceivable aspect.

Through Him we are guaranteed better promises, a superior High Priest, a perfect relationship with God, and an inconceivable inheritance and destiny.

The heavenly Jerusalem, that city not made with hands, not of this creation is now, and will forever be, our place of rest and life. We are its citizens by rebirth, a citizenship for which we have done nothing, but which is nonetheless freely ours through Christ - forever.

Nothing in this life compares. Nothing. Not health or wealth or success or relationships or travel or luxury or comfort or anything.

All those earthly things we strive to obtain, attain, and keep are worthless piles of dung in contrast.

Whatever we hold onto in this life we are certain to lose.

As has been written: “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.” 

The City of the Living God

But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel. (Hebrews 12:22-24, NKJV).

Most of us are stuck.

We are held fast to the world by the things of the world and our perceptions are centered on the world. This is as natural and understandable as can be, but so is sin and death. Understandable does not make something right or beneficial or good.

To a certain extent, of course, our geocentric viewpoint is almost invisible, like the air we breathe and walk through. It is so much a part of our human nature, and so pervasive, that it is almost too difficult to notice and call it a thing.

Again, that doesn't make it right, just harder to change.

The passage above from Hebrews is written to remind us that we Christians inhabit two worlds, and have two natures. We are slowly, but surely, being weaned and transformed from the one, so that we can be full citizens of the other. Sometimes the transformation hurts, and we reflexively resist, but the more we resist, the more painful it becomes.

At other times, the shift in perspective and essential nature is so subtle we don't even notice until suddenly it seems a veil is ripped from our eyes and we see things as they really are, as we KNOW they must really be - without doubt or shadow - and the shock and awe lays us flat on our faces.

In turn, this may lead to a compulsion to repent in dust and ashes, like Job or Peter or Isaiah, when God grants us a view of Himself, as He really is. That is indeed a good, if terrifying, thing.

But be assured, however it happens, we who are Christ's are being conformed to His image by whatever it takes, because He WILL finish that good work He has begun in us, whether kicking and screaming, or in trusting surrender. 

For our citizenship is in Heaven, and the contrast between Heaven and earth is what the text above is emphasizing; that, in fact, all of Hebrews has been emphasizing by extolling and detailing the superiority of Christ to all that has come before and could ever come in the future.

Instead of Mount Sinai, an earthly location where the Law of sin and death was given in fire and darkness, we - through faith in Christ, have come to Mount Zion, a place in an altogether different realm, a realm that makes our present three dimensional existence in time and space a mere shadow, a vapor, in comparison to where we are destined to spend all eternity.

In this life, in the world where Mount Sinai exists, the dwelling places are man-made, mundane, faulty. Our cities are filled with corruption and decay, however deceivingly presentable they may appear on the surface.

There, in the life to come,upon Mount Zion, is the city of the living God; a place fashioned by Him for His glory. The very phrase should send thrills of pleasure and anticipation through the very core of our being.

To be in the loving Presence of the living God is an inbuilt longing in each and every soul, corrupted and disguised by sin, but cleansed and reborn when we come in faith to Christ.  As His children, made alive together with Him, the poignant longing for that something - that someplace - that cannot be adequately described or imagined, fills our hearts with an unspeakable (because there are no words) and holy desire.

This verse in Hebrews at least puts a name to it - the city of the living God, and will provide us with a further glimpse of what that place entails - its glory, perfection, and majesty.

But this one final thought is, for me, the most comforting, the most reassuring, the most astounding.

This city of the living God is our one, true, home.