Wherefore let us, receiving a kingdom not to be shaken, have grace, by which let us serve God acceptably with reverence and fear.
Hebrews has just warned that God will shake heaven and earth. Then comes the surprise: the people who will watch everything collapse already hold something that cannot collapse. The verse joins a gift with a duty — what we receive, and how we then serve.
The kingdom here is not something waiting at the end of history. It is held now, and held by faith, while the visible world remains temporary.
What a blessing such a kingdom is — eternal in character, yet received now by faith. "My kingdom is not of this world," the King Himself has declared (John 18:36), for "the world is passing away along with its desires" (1 John 2:17). Since this kingdom cannot be moved, let us not be moved either. Instead, let us draw from God the grace to serve Him in a way that is acceptable to Him, in keeping with His eternal nature and purposes.
While the old order was passing away, God was forming the part of this kingdom that no shaking can reach.
Meanwhile the first fruits of this new creation were being formed. In Christianity God was forming the heavenly part of the kingdom that cannot be moved, while Judaism — the centre of the earthly system and of human responsibility — was passing away. The apostle therefore announces the shaking of all things... About the present fact he says only, "we receive a kingdom that cannot be moved." And he calls us to serve God with true reverence, because our God is a consuming fire — not, as people say, God out of Christ, but our God.
The order of the sentence matters. Serving is not the price of the kingdom; it is the response to already owning it.
Let us also notice why we are urged to serve God acceptably. It is not to make the kingdom sure to us. It is because we have already received it, and it never can be moved. The very certainty of it, far from making us careless, only incites us to serve.
Older translations read "let us have grace." Commentators take that grace as the supply that makes service possible. Some render the same word as thankfulness.
God will shake heaven and earth, the sea and the dry land. Everything will be shaken except the Kingdom that cannot be moved — the Kingdom of divine grace, the Kingdom of Christ into which He has brought us. This can never be moved. Since we have received this Kingdom, He says, let us have grace; for grace alone can equip us for His service, and that grace overflows with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.
Older translations read "godly fear" where the ESV has "awe." Here is what that fear involves.
A fitting reverence is to be joined with godly fear — a healthy, serious regard for the awesome majesty of God. For He is a consuming fire, to be feared in His holiness, consuming everything that will not stand the test of eternity. When He displays His grace, He does not give up the slightest part of His holiness.
The same Greek word is used of the Lord Jesus Himself in prayer.
The Spirit of God can bring back to us "the days of His flesh" (Hebrews 5:7). Then He "offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to Him who was able to save Him from death," and "He was heard because of His reverence." The Greek word there is eulabeia. Compare Hebrews 12:28, where the same word is used of His reverent submission to the will of God.
The God who is a consuming fire is the same God who is Father. Awe and love live in the same heart.
"Therefore let us... have grace (or, thankfulness)... For our God is a consuming fire." See the beautiful picture of this in Revelation 4. The glorified elders are completely unmoved by the lightning, thunder and voices that come out of the throne. But when the living creatures give glory to Him who sits on it, they are all activity... By grace we fear Him and yet love Him, and want to serve Him. "Our" God is certainly a consuming fire; still, He is our Father who loves us perfectly.
The practical result touches how we measure our own small efforts.
The things we see, so impressive in the world today, can be shaken and will therefore be removed. But God's people are linked to a kingdom that cannot be shaken... If we work and serve God in line with His purpose, our work will last when all the earth is moved away, however feeble it may look now.
- Received — the unshakeable kingdom is a present possession, held by faith, not a future wage. We own it while the visible world is still passing away.
- Therefore — service comes after the gift, not before it. Certainty about the kingdom breeds energy, not carelessness.
- Grace — we draw the strength to serve from God; we do not summon it from ourselves. Some render the word as thankfulness.
- Fear — the same word describes Christ's own reverent submission in prayer. Awe and nearness belong together.
- Lasting — our God is a consuming fire, so everything shakeable burns. Work done in line with His purpose, however small, is what remains.
For also our God [is] a consuming fire.
Hebrews 12 ends on fire. It has just handed believers a kingdom that cannot be moved, so why does it close with words that sound like Sinai all over again?
One small word carries the verse: our. Commentators say this is not what God will be to the world, but what He is to His own people.
This is especially solemn. We must let this statement have its full moral weight with our souls. We must not try to blunt its sharp edge with false notions about grace. We sometimes hear it said that "God is a consuming fire to the world." One day He will be, no doubt. But now He is dealing with the world in grace, patience, and long-suffering mercy... So also, in Hebrews 12 we read, "For our God is a consuming fire." He is not speaking of what God will be to the world, but of what He is to us. Nor is it, as some put it, "God is a consuming fire out of Christ." We know nothing of God out of Christ. He could not be "our God" out of Christ.
Another writer weighs the exact wording:
Notice it does not say that God is such, nor that the God of Israel was a consuming fire, but that our God, the God revealed in Christianity, is not only a fire, but one that consumes.
So what does the fire do? It tests the service His people bring Him.
Once more the "consuming fire" is an expression of the holiness of God in testing all our service, and in the necessary judgment of all that is evil in it.
The verse just before this one gives believers a kingdom that cannot be moved. This one names the God whose kingdom it is.
Since this kingdom cannot be moved, let us not be moved either. Let us draw from God the grace to serve Him acceptably — that is, in a way acceptable to Him, and in keeping with His eternal nature and purposes. Fitting reverence must go together with godly fear, a healthy, serious regard for the awesome majesty of God. For He is a consuming fire, fearful in holiness, consuming all that will not stand the test of eternity. The display of His grace involves no giving up whatever of His holiness.
Does this clash with "God is love"? One writer answers with the jealousy of love.
It seems very different to say, "Our God is a consuming fire" compared with "God is love," but really these statements go together. Our God is a consuming fire because He is love. There must be an intense action that both preserves what is good and opposes what is evil. Can God be indifferent to anything that would keep people from knowing His love? Impossible. How does a mother feel towards the snake that would bite her child?... Our jealousy is the result of selfishness, but God's jealousy is the result of complete unselfishness. If we know the love of God, we are thankful for every attribute of His. If not, even His kindness fills us with dread.
If God is this to His own people, what does the fire touch? One writer points to the bush that burned without burning up.
God is not a consuming fire outside His people until the day of judgment, but He is now a consuming fire in His people... Now, in the middle of His people, His fire is working... God's fire, though burning in the bush, did not consume it; neither does the fire with which the saint is salted consume the saint.
So a believer can even welcome it:
If we are right minded we shall welcome this, for our God only consumes what He cannot approve, what is of the flesh. It is a mercy that it is so, for in this way our standing and our state come fully into accord.
The chapter ends with a warning for anyone who turns away from what God now offers.
From the fires of Sinai there was relief, by turning and taking refuge in Christ; but there is no relief if you despise the relief God gives. If you turn away from the relief this present age brings in, there is no more relief.
- Ours. The fire is not God at a distance or God outside of Christ; it is the God Christians name as their own.
- Unchanged. Grace never softened His holiness. The God who gives the kingdom is the fire.
- Because love. He consumes because He loves. Love cannot be indifferent to what harms the one it loves.
- Inward now. Today the fire works within His people, burning what is of the flesh, as the bush burned and stayed whole.
- Outward then. Refuse the relief God gives now, and no other refuge is left.