What does it mean to fall short of God's grace (Hebrews 12:15)?

(V. 15). Fifthly, the Apostle exhorts us to look “diligently” against anyone lacking the grace of God. Failing of the grace of God is losing confidence in God's grace and the practical enjoyment of what God is for us. In result some root of bitterness may spring up, troubling the saints, and many may be defiled by entertaining bitter thoughts of one another.

This is only strengthened by what follows: "Looking to it lest any one lack (or, fall short of) the grace of God." Without the heart's resting on His grace and consequently on Christ and His work, all is vain; because all is man, and fallen man, presuming otherwise to seek acceptance with God. In such a condition there never can be an adequate sense of sin any more than of holiness. Grace, the grace of God, enables the soul to judge itself unsparingly, and to delight in the unsullied nature of God; because it gives in Christ the life which suits God perfectly, and the propitiation which blots out our sins. This indeed is love, not ours (though we do love) but His in its blessed fulness. It is sovereign grace; of which souls fall short, who dare to approach God in virtue of their own doings or of acts done for them by mortal man, to both of which Israel had recourse, perhaps as much as the heathen.

If self-righteousness be excluded, and outward rites be in lieu of Christ, more evidently hateful to God is "any root of 'bitterness" which springing up should trouble, and thereby the many or mass be defiled. For such is the effect of evil, as is shown in 1 Cor. 5 and Gal. 5 under the figure of leaven, as here by a root of bitterness. It might take a variety of forms; and here we have specified carnal impurity and profanity, both intolerable where God is and is known. Of the latter evil Esau is the instance, who for one meal sold his birthright. Every Hebrew was familiar with a tale humbling indeed for all concerned; but Esau stood on unhallowed ground, where God's promise yet more was despised than any such birthright. What a warning to those Hebrews in danger of giving up incomparably better blessings with Him whose kingdom did not immediately appear, as they fondly hoped! It was not repentance that Esau earnestly sought with tears, but the blessing which his father even had wished wrongly to alienate from Jacob, the heir designated of Jehovah from before their birth.

The word for "looking diligently" does not mean looking at ourselves lest we should fail. We are to be overseers. Cain insolently asked, "Am I my brother's keeper?" and we can answer, "Yes." We are to see that no one of our brethren fails or is lacking in the grace of God. Notice that the object of oversight is not primarily the walk or the details of the life, but its source. It may be necessary to take knowledge of a brother's walk, to deal faithfully with such as have turned away from the Lord or dishonored Him, but the primary object of brotherly oversight is to see that no one is lacking in the grace of God. If you see a tendency in any to lose the sense of God's grace, if the free grace and love of God cease to have a charm for the soul, that is the danger sign for us. And oftentimes we would be of the greatest help to one another if we guarded against this.

If grace is lacking, some bitter root of self-will is bound to come up. The bitter root is in the flesh and it is only grace that can keep it down. When it springs up and troubles us, how many does a bitter root defile! Achan did not suffer alone; and the rebellion of Korah was accompanied by widespread murmuring. May the Lord enable us to judge everything that is contrary to His grace. Let us be established in grace, and the bitter roots, the self-will of sin will not have opportunity to spring up and defile.

"Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled; lest there be any fornicator or profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright. For ye know how that afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was re­jected; (for he found no place of repentance), though he sought it carefully with tears." Godly watchfulness is only becoming to the people of God, for the enemy is ever active in seeking to tear down from inside. One may "fail of the grace of God," that is, though he has known that grace in theory, yet his heart has not embraced it: he is outwardly a disciple, but not so in heart. In such soil, "a root of bitterness" may easily spring up, a revul­sion against the pure, precious Word of God and against the holy Person of the Lord Jesus. If such should occur among Christians. how easily others may be defiled, - not perhaps going to the same lengths as the bitter offender, yet badly affected by his unholy ways. The person spoken of as "a fornicator or profane person, as Esau" is of course not a believer at all, though he may have passed as one, and for this reason can be dangerous.

"Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you." If you consult at your leisure Deuteronomy 29, you will find a root of bitterness there spoken of; but it is a different kind from this. There it arose from some man taking up false gods — here it is failing of the grace of God. The whole epistle has it as its bearing and purpose, to nail your ear, in scripture language, to the door-post of Him that is speaking of grace. It is not a lawgiver that is heard, but One who is publishing salvation from the highest heavens. Angels and principalities and powers are made subject to the Purger of our sins; and the Purger of our sins has taken our conscience up to the highest heavens and every tongue that could lay a charge against us is silenced, as we read in Romans 8. (See also 1 Peter 3:21-22.)

In ver. 12 we are exhorted not to let our hands hang down. There is no reason why it should be so. Though you are under the scourge, there is not one single reason why your hands should hang down, or your knees be feeble; for the Spirit has shown you yourself first in company with Christ, and then with your Father who loves you. Is there any reason why you should travel as if you did not know the road? This is a beautiful conclusion. We all know how the hands will hang down; but I set my seal to every word of this, and say, "Truth, Lord." There is no reason that we should be faint-hearted. Then having come to that, he looks round. Do not let your own hands hang down; and, in connection with others, follow peace; - in connection with God, follow holiness. "What communion hath light with darkness "what concord hath Christ with Belial?" "Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you." If you consult at your leisure Deut. 29, you will find a root of bitterness there spoken of; but it is a different kind from this. There, it arose from some man taking up false gods - here, it is from failing of the grace of God. The whole epistle has it as its bearing and purpose, to nail your ear (in Scripture language) to the door-post of Him that is speaking of grace. It is not a lawgiver that is heard, but one who is publishing salvation from the highest heavens. Angels and principalities and powers are made subject to the Purger of our sins; and the Purger of our sins has taken our conscience up to the highest heavens, and every tongue that could lay a charge against us is silenced, as we read in Rom. 8 (See also 1 Peter 3:21-22.) Now, take care lest you fail of the grace thus published. It may end in the profaneness of Esau. It has been said by another, that this reference to Esau must have been very striking to the mind of a Jew. "If you fail of the grace of God, you will be left in the position of one whom your nation repudiates."' I do not care what you take up in His stead, if you slip away from Christ, you may be tomorrow in the position of the reprobate Esau. How does Esau stand before you? As the type of that generation who by and by will say, "Lord, Lord, open to us." But their tears will be as ineffectual as Esau's by the bedside of his dying father. He came too late. So, when once God has risen up and shut to the door, they will find no place of repentance. This ver. 17 is very solemn. It tells me that that action of Esau's is the presentation to our thoughts of that which is still to be realised in an Esau generation, and only in such. "Behold, ye despisers, and wonder, and perish." Esau despised his birthright, and this generation have refused the grace of God, and despised the Christ that has passed through the world, and died for sinners.

The communion of the Holy Ghost can rest on nothing but the finished grace of God. It can only be maintained by vigilance and active holiness. Systematic self-righteousness is, doubtless, fatally destructive to true spiritual fellowship. For by faith alone we stand. But there are other roots of bitterness whose springing must be as watchfully anticipated or repressed. Nothing is more forcibly insisted on by the Spirit of God than the exclusion of evil from the Church, which is the habitation of His presence. The contagious power of neglected sin, is a topic of very frequent as well as solemn warning in the word of truth. That "one sinner destroys much good," is a standing maxim of Divine wisdom. The leaven of wickedness, if suffered through carelessness to lurk within the lump, will certainly infect it with a constantly-increasing energy. God is the true Detector of all evil. Where we walk with Him, His presence speedily discovers any practical variance from the holiness of His way. In contrast to the dereliction of the grace of God, there stands the opposite and not less deadly evil of its deliberate abuse. Both these extremes appear to be comprised within the general expression, "root of bitterness."

Verses 16, 17. They were to beware of such. For sanctification, body, soul, and spirit, was the will of God concerning them. They should know the natural man, in spite of his disguise, and shun with care all recognition of profaneness in the temple of the living God. The standing type of "a profane person"* is Esau, the despiser of his birthright. In his sale of the birthright, we have an example of nature's estimate of heavenly things. His heart was never really on the birthright, because he had no true appreciation of the inheritance. As the apparent heir of the promises of God, he stood in an entirely false light. For he was without the faith which alone makes promise precious. When a crisis comes, and the birthright, as an insubstantial thing, is compared with the smallest measure or the lowest quality of temporal advantage, there is a deliberate preference of the creature to the Creator. God, never having been enjoyed while Esau held a title whose sole value was its expectance of His favour, was no strength to Esau in his day of trial. Meat was more to him than God. For his soul's desires were on this side death. When faint, and at the point to die, the birthright lost all value in his eyes. His heart was on it only while it ministered to the flesh. He valued his title as the chief of Isaac's house, but he never thought of it as something better than his life (Gen. 25:32-34).

In despising his birthright, Esau gave up God. But he by no means surrendered his expectations as the eldest-born of Isaac. He knew his father's natural partiality, and relied upon it for the ultimate attainment of the blessing which he desired to inherit. He went his way, and lived long years as he had lived before, a cunning hunter, ranging at his will the fields which pleased him best, without a feeling of regret, still less of repentant desire, in relation to his vacated birthright. Such is the impression conveyed to our minds by the scanty narrative which Scripture affords respecting Esau, previously to the decisive repudiation of his claim. His alliance by marriage with the Canaanite is the solitary but highly characteristic incident related of him until the hour of his bitter undeceiving. With an exceeding great and bitter cry he received from Isaac the unlooked-for extinction of his hope. His former confidence is now the cause of his despair. He had trusted in his natural parent for things which only God could give. Of Isaac he is now rejected. With a reiterated blessing he bestowed on Jacob the inheritance (Gen. 26:33). The tears of Esau could not move a revocation of the blessing once pronounced. It followed the birthright which Esau had so long ago despised. He sought it carefully, but could not obtain it. There was no repentance either in God's calling of the younger born to the inheritance, or in the heart of Esau towards the God whom he had formerly renounced.*

Unless the full grace of God has its place in the souls of Christians, they never can walk with God in the powers of that grace. If the least thing of self comes in, it is all over with the joy and liberty in which free grace enables a believer to walk. If grace be the groundwork, it does not give way; if I have failed (whatever may be the character of my failure) the light in which it comes out to be judged, gives my soul a fresh start to go on again with God. It is a solemn question whether am holding fast to free grace.

The first mention of birthright is in connection with one that despised it; and to his contempt for it the apostle alludes as a warning to believers "lest any man fail of the grace of God," etc., etc. (Heb. 12:15-16). For all in the church of God are first-born ones, and the privileges of our birthright are inalienable, though we may if worldly minded here lose the joy, even the knowledge of them. Esau selling his birthright for a mess of pottage is called profane; it is as if a Christian would barter his heavenly position and character for some fancied earthly good, for present ease in this world, or to escape the reproach of Christ. Our privileges are for the present time joined with the reproach of the world; for "all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution" (2 Tim. 3:12).

Peace with all men was to be sought also, not at the expense of holiness, but in holiness which, with the Lord, is a first necessity: without it none shall see Him. And therefore they must look diligently to see that no one among them really lacked the grace of God, and so a root of bitterness spring up in their midst by which many might be defiled. For alas, we have in us all that which makes us susceptible to such infection; and the presence, of the evil shows already a lax condition which has allowed it to spring up.