Hebrews 12:15 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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Hebrews 12:15

Comments

If we do not walk in holiness, we not only incur God’s chastisement, but equally we may trouble and defile our church. We have to take great care to watch carefully. ‘Looking diligently’ is a compound word in the Greek. It literally means look about like a watchman, take great care. How might someone fail of the grace of God? Does it mean fail in terms of saving grace – somebody is not truly converted in our midst – or does it mean falling from a position which you held, a true Christian who has been saved and exhibited great concern for holiness of life, but who then slips back from that and falls into all kinds of sin? Some interpreters go one way, some go the other. Is it about bad behaviour? I think actually, it can be applied equally to the one or the other, but it is much more about bad behaviour.Of course it is primarily the task of officers in the church, and those who are shepherds within the congregation, to help people who slip and slide. But without anybody turning into a busybody it is the task of every Christian. We admonish one another, and we are commanded to do so in the word of God. But it falls especially to those who are closest to an offender, to somebody who slips and slides, and it is their responsibility. They are the best-equipped people, they are the ones who have the best foundation on which to go and plead with somebody who is erring. Within the fellowship of God's people we watch out for each other. We come to each other’s aid and come alongside each other. Looking diligently, looking about being a watchman, lest any man fail or fall short of the grace of God. The grace of God here means not so much saving grace as God's work in the heart. God is working in all our hearts, advancing us in righteousness and holiness. Well, we may become cold and sinful and that is a great tragedy. It does apply though to those who are not converted. Pray for them, those who have evidently never found the Lord. It’s most important that when we take people into fellowship they have a clear profession of faith.

Application

In the covenant written by Benjamin Keech, one of the provisions is a kind of pledge that we are in satisfied in good measure about the work of God in each other's hearts. We pledge ourselves to walk together for the Lord. It is a good practice in a local church that when anyone professes the Lord and applies for membership, they write out their testimony and read it out in a public meeting so that the existing members may be satisfied in good measure concerning the work of grace in their hearts.

We have to watch ourselves. We have to look for the unhappy event of somebody becoming impatient or peevish or proud or covetous. This can spread through a congregation: some prominent person spoils and younger believers see and their conscience about this is fractured, and they take on the same behaviour. ‘Lest any root of bitterness’ – there is a root inside all of us of inner corruption. The new nature has been created within us, but the residual old nature is still there deep down within us: ‘the old man’, the apostle Paul calls it, the body of sin, the flesh. We are to keep it down and let the new nature prevail over it by the help of the Holy Spirit. So if there is hypocrisy or anger or failure of faith and trust, we help one another and we admonish and encourage one another.

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Hebrews 12:15 Commentary and Bible Study