Pursue peace with all, and holiness, without which no one shall see the Lord
Hebrews 12 has just described how God disciplines His children, and it has called weak hands and knees to grow strong. Verse 14 names two things to chase: peace with everyone, and holiness. What kind of holiness is meant, and does the warning at the end put a believer's standing in doubt?
The verb is stronger than a mild "follow." It means a deliberate chase — after peace with everyone, and after holiness. The ESV catches it with "strive for," and the second call carries a warning.
The word is "pursue" (which is stronger than "follow") "peace with all"... We already have peace with God through our Lord Jesus. Now we are urged to work hard for peace in practice, in a world with so many causes of disagreement. And this means peace not only with one another but with all. God Himself is the God of peace, and His children are to reflect His character. But an even stronger warning is attached to the call to holiness — "without (or apart from) which no one will see the Lord." Here the word is sanctification: not merely the abstract quality, but that quality in action, its result as applied to us.
The verse ties peace and holiness in a single sentence, and pulling them apart damages both. Each separated half has its own typical failure.
Peace and holiness are the normal fruits of Christianity. If both are completely missing, that person has not known the Lord, and he will not stand in His presence. But let the believer follow these things in wholehearted devotion. Too often souls split these two apart. They insist on peace while ignoring holiness, or on holiness while ignoring peace. The first ends in a friendly tolerance of sin, the second in a quarrelsome spirit of legalism.
The same letter has already called its readers holy. That is not a contradiction. The word carries two senses: a position given, and a practice pursued.
When we read, "Therefore, holy brothers, you who share in a heavenly calling..." (Heb. 3:1), we are not to understand this to mean that they were far advanced in practical holiness, but that they were a people set apart for God as partaking in the heavenly calling... and soon after we find they are urged to "strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness" (Heb. 12:14), which points to the same thing. The holy brothers are told to pursue holiness.
Many read the last clause and start hunting for a level of personal holiness good enough for God to accept. Darby says they have mixed up two different questions.
Take this passage: "the holiness [sanctification] without which no one will see the Lord." Nothing troubles a soul more often than that line. The point is simple: if I do not have Christ, I cannot see the Lord... The first question to ask in such a case is, Have you peace with God, the pardon of your sins? If not, the question is the justification of a sinner.
The warning is not a threat hanging over a sensitive conscience. It states something no Christian would deny.
There is nothing harsh in that. Not a word here should cause the smallest difficulty to the most sensitive spirit. Surely no Christian would say or allow that a man can live as he likes and still go to heaven. Can a person sin as a habit and be born of God?
So where does the strength for that pursuit come from? Gaebelein points away from any special experience and back to grace.
In Christ, believers are sanctified once for all, as this letter has clearly shown... The call does not mean some "holiness experience" that makes a believer fit to see the Lord, whether by wiping out the old nature or by anything else... It means pursuing the holiness that grace has called us into, that grace has given, and for which grace supplies daily power.
The reason lies in who God is, not in an arbitrary standard.
God's own nature is perfectly holy. So no one can walk in His courts who does not match that nature morally. Nothing that defiles can ever enter there, and no one who does what is detestable.
- Pursue. The word is stronger than "follow." Chase peace with everyone, because God is the God of peace and His children reflect His character.
- Pair. Peace without holiness sinks into a friendly tolerance of sin. Holiness without peace hardens into legalism. Hold both.
- Position first. Believers are already set apart in Christ. The "holy brothers" of chapter 3 are the very ones told to pursue holiness here.
- Not a ground of acceptance. If that last clause frightens you, the real question is justification, not holiness. Do you have peace with God and pardon for your sins?
- Grace supplies it. Grace calls us into this holiness, grace gives it, and grace supplies daily power for it. It is not a special experience that erases the old nature.
watching lest [there be] any one who lacks the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble [you], and many be defiled by it;
This verse gives every believer a job: watch over one another. One person who falls short of God's grace becomes a root, and what grows from it troubles the whole group and defiles many.
The word behind "see to it" does not point inward. It makes every believer a watchman over the rest.
The word for "looking diligently" does not mean looking at ourselves in case we fail. We are to be overseers. Cain asked with contempt, "Am I my brother's keeper?" We can answer, "Yes." We are to see that none of our brothers fails or lacks the grace of God. Notice that oversight aims first not at how a person lives, or the details of daily life, but at its source. If you see anyone beginning to lose the sense of God's grace, if the free grace and love of God stops delighting the soul, that is the danger sign. Often we would be the greatest help to one another by guarding against this.
Some think this care is the job of gifted leaders alone.
One thing is clear: this passage in Hebrews 12 says nothing about pastors. It is a stirring call to all Christians to care for one another, and to watch that no root of bitterness springs up.
Falling short of grace means the heart has stopped resting on Christ.
If the heart does not rest on His grace, and so on Christ and His work, all is empty. It is all man — fallen man — trying to gain acceptance with God some other way. In that condition there can never be a real sense of sin, or of holiness. Grace, the grace of God, lets the soul judge itself without holding back, and delight in the pure nature of God. It can do this because it gives in Christ the life that suits God perfectly, and the propitiation that blots out our sins.
Another writer names what is lost, and what follows.
Failing of the grace of God is losing confidence in God's grace and the practical enjoyment of what God is for us. As a result some root of bitterness may spring up and trouble God's people. Many may then be defiled by holding bitter thoughts about one another.
The root is not planted from outside. It already lies in us, and only one thing holds it down.
If grace is lacking, some bitter root of self-will is bound to come up. The bitter root is in the flesh, and only grace can keep it down. When it springs up and troubles us, how many does a bitter root defile! Achan did not suffer alone, and Korah's rebellion came with widespread complaining.
Evil spreads. Other passages picture that spread in another way.
Even more obviously hateful to God is "any root of bitterness," which springs up, causes trouble, and so defiles the many, the mass of the people. That is how evil works. Scripture pictures it as yeast in 1 Corinthians 5 and Galatians 5, and here as a root of bitterness.
Small beginnings are the usual pattern.
The matter may seem small on the surface. But it is very easy to "fail of the grace of God." Then some small difference lets a "root of bitterness" spring up, and it troubles us all, so that "by it many become defiled." A great fire may start from a little spark.
Deuteronomy also warns of a root of bitterness, but the cause there is different.
Look at Deuteronomy 29 when you have time. You will find a root of bitterness spoken of there, but it is a different kind from this. There it arose from someone taking up false gods; here it is failing of the grace of God. The whole letter aims at one thing: to fasten your ear to the doorpost of the One who speaks of grace. You do not hear a lawgiver here. You hear One who publishes salvation from the highest heavens.
The remedy is ordinary, early and personal.
How often we have been sure of this. A little wise pastoral care, or even the care of a fellow believer, a little loving, godly counsel, might have nipped the evil in the bud. It would have prevented untold trouble and sorrow. May we all take these things to heart. May we seek grace to do what we can, so that roots of bitterness never spring up and spread their defiling influence.
- Grace first. Falling short of grace is the cause; everything else in the verse follows from it.
- Root next. Self-will lies in the flesh already, and only grace keeps it buried.
- Reach. Once it springs up, it works like yeast — bitter thoughts pass from one to many.
- Result. Achan and Korah show that no one sins alone; the whole group suffers.
- Remedy. Every Christian, not just gifted leaders, watches the source in another's soul and speaks early.