Hebrews 4:12-13 – Exhortation #2: Make Every Effort – The Word Of God Is Living And Active

Session 9 – August 13, 2020 – Men’s Morning Hebrews Haverim

Our Men’s Haverim group is reading through and discussing the book of Hebrews during the months of August and September. For more information, see this blog post.

12 For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. 13 Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.

Hebrews 4:12-13 New International Version

Summary:

• After warning his readers about falling into unbelief and disobedience and illustrating this with the concept of entering God’s rest, the author adds a warning: the word of God is living and active and can cut in a way to reveal our thoughts and attitudes of the heart.
• All will be revealed and we will be called to give account.

Other Thoughts:

• The author continues his theme that the Scriptures teach us about how to obey and have faith in God. They are alive and active, able to uncover where we truly are before God.
• The word of God penetrates like a double-edged sword – it can reach the innermost thoughts and attitudes that we have, even to the point of separating soul from spirit, the psyche and pneuma in Greek, or the spirit in us and the spirit breathed into us. Many interpreters have focused on the idea that the word of God can separate what is impossible to separate, or that it’s like a surgeon’s knife, but the point is that it reaches the deep and tightly knit areas of our thoughts and attitudes. God already knows our true self and whether we are in unbelief and disobedience.
• We should be using the word of God to reveal our hearts so that our brothers and sisters can encourage us and help us to complete our journey toward entering His rest.
• Revelation 2:12-13 also mentions a double-edged sword, the one the returned King has coming from his mouth (Rev 1:16). The returned Jesus tells the church in Pergamum that though they didn’t renounce his name, they followed false teaching into sin, and he’ll use the sword to fight against the false teachers. The word of God is living and active!
• In Hebrews 4:13, the word translated “laid bare” literally means “naked”. This is reminiscent of Adam and Eve in the Garden – sin causes us to be aware of our nakedness and makes us want to cover it up, and the word of God makes us aware of our sin and makes us want to expose it.
• These two verses end the exhortation to make every effort to enter His rest and move the letter back to Jesus as High Priest, as we’ll see in the next section.
• Are you allowing the word of God to penetrate your heart and lay bare everything before God?