What is a root of bitterness (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.

(Vv. 16, 17). Sixthly, we are to watch against any unholy alliance with the world, prefigured by fornication. Finally, we are warned against treating divine things as if they were common. This is profanity, of which Esau is a solemn example, who, for some present, passing advantage treated the birthright lightly — as if it were of little account. This surely was a solemn warning to these Hebrews, as indeed it is to all who have made a profession, against lightly throwing aside the blessings of Christianity. Alas! Christendom is fast falling into the profanity of Esau, to find, like Esau, they will be rejected. It was not, let us note, repentance that Esau earnestly sought with tears, but rather the blessing when it was too late. Christendom will find that there is no place of repentance for apostasy.

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.

Verse 15. While, therefore, practical holiness was earnestly to be pursued, they were to see carefully to its producing cause. They should look diligently that none among them fell short of the grace of God.* Nothing was more essential to their common well-being than this. If anything that clashed with God's pure word of grace should come to be accepted by them for sound Christian doctrine, the Gospel was virtually gone. When a legal spirit, instead of being censured as a grave defect, should be recognized with honour in the Church, its true character, as the household of the Son, was lost. It had already quitted its first love. Christ was of no avail to any who, under an ostensible confession of His name, still counted other things than Christ essential to salvation. The evil warned against was not more dangerous than subtle. It is by privy entrances, while men are slumbering, that Satan gains admittance for his spies upon the liberty of Christ (Gal. 2:4). Such a deadly mischief must, if possible, be anticipated in its earliest workings. No man who failed to allege the grace of God as the sole reason of his hope in Christ, should be acknowledged as a genuine believer. Weakness of faith, or timid hesitation in appropriating to the full the amazing riches of the grace of God, because of a present conflict with one's personal corruptions, is not at all in question here. They only are contemplated who, with settled minds, and positive doctrinal views, are found, in their doctrine, to come short of Gospel truth. Where men maintained, for instance, that to keep the law was necessary to salvation, they were subverters of their brethren's souls (Acts 15). The apostle knew full well that holiness could only flourish upon grace. But he was quite as well aware that such is not the natural thought of our hearts. More especially were Hebrews, accustomed from their infancy to associate together the ideas of personal righteousness and human effort, in danger of defilement from this deepest and most quickly-spreading root of bitterness. But although at its early entrance legalism was, in strictness, a Jewish corruption of the faith, yet the principle is one of readiest acceptance in the natural heart of every man. It was when works received an equal honour, in the professing Christian body, with the grace of God, that the spirit yielded to the flesh. Corruption grew on prosperously under such a sanction, until what was once betrothed as a chaste virgin to the Lord, has turned to be the harlot of the world, and the mysterious mother of abominations.

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).

"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.

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.

Suppose by way of illustration that envious feelings, or a hard and unforgiving spirit, is allowed or cultivated in the heart of any believer towards any of his brethren; or suppose one brother becomes jealous of another because he seems to have more honour than himself,—these are bitter roots from which will spring “hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, and strife”—works of the flesh, and most deadly in their effect wherever they show themselves. How often have we seen happy Christian companies blighted and broken by “bitterness, wrath, anger, clamour, and evil speaking;” or as a result of one or more who ought to have served all in love, lording it over the Lord's heritage. Our association with all the saints of God is a divinely-formed association, and we must not, we cannot, ignore it. The spiritual prosperity of one is a help to all, and the works of the flesh in any means harm to all. We can no longer live as though we alone are affected by our living, “for if one member suffer all the members suffer with it.”

These searching words are referred to by the inspired apostle in his Epistle to the Hebrews, in a very emphatic manner. "Looking diligently," he says, "lest any man fail of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled."

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.

"A scab." This covers up some old wound or sore. How many of us are troubled with scabs! Somebody has treated us badly in the past and it still sticks in our hearts. We have never really forgiven them, though we have tried to cover up the old sore. It is like the root of bitterness (Hebrews 12:15), hidden away in the ground, covered up, but liable to spring up at any time and "defile many," just as the scab is liable to hide leprosy at any time, and also defile many. Oh, friends, do be careful about these scabs; they are most dangerous things. King Saul is an example of a man terribly ill with "scabs."

"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.)