Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 3206
“The general assembly and Church of the First-Born, which are written in Heaven.” Hebrews 12:23.
PAUL had just been giving a brief description of the great gathering of the children of Israel around Mount Sinai, “the mount that might be touched, and that burned with fire,” like a huge volcano. He had vividly portrayed “the blackness, and darkness, and tempest, and the sound of trumpet, and the voice of words,” and the frightened multitudes standing, trembling, at a distance, and even Moses, their great leader, so alarmed that he cried out, “I exceedingly fear and quake.” Paul intends that description to teach us the effect that the legal dispensation can produce—it can alarm and condemn—but it cannot save! You who are under the Law of God, you who are trying to win God’s favor by your good works. You who fancy that human merit can bring you salvation, look to the flames which Moses saw and sink, and tremble and despair! You who think that you can live as the Law requires and so attain to everlasting life, may well stand shivering and trembling before this Almighty, though invisible God whose lightning blazes before your eyes and whose voice of thunder must alarm the most stout heart! Terrible is the plight of the man who has to depend upon what Sinai can give him—he is wretched in life, he shall be troubled in death, he shall be lost forever in eternity! “By the works of the Law shall no flesh be justified.” “As many as are of the works of the Law are under the curse.” “By Grace are you saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast.”
Having given that description of Sinai by way of contrast, Paul now brings out the much more pleasing picture of the Gospel dispensation. Christians shall also have their great assembly! There is a mountain upon which all those who are under Grace shall one day gather—a mountain that does not smoke, for it is Mount Zion—the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem! There will be words there, but they will be words of sacred song and names of holy gladness. There may be trumpets there, but they will be the silver trumpets that will proclaim the eternal jubilee. Moses will be there, but no longer fearing and quaking, for when he comes to that mount of God, he will forget all his fears and rejoice without ceasing in the Lord his God. Believers are the multitude whom no man can number, who will assemble upon that glorious mountain to keep the everlasting holy day! Happy indeed shall we be when, by Grace, we come to the general assembly and Church of the first-born, whose names are written in Heaven—when we shall see that sight which was revealed to John in Patmos—a Lamb standing on the Mount Zion—and with Him those who have His Father’s name written on their foreheads, who follow the Lamb wherever He goes and who are without fault before the Throne of
God!
The first point to which I am going to draw your attention is the description given of Believers as the Church of the First-Born. Next, I want to remind you of what is said about their enrolment—they are written or enrolled (as the original reading renders it) in Heaven. And then, thirdly, I shall have something to say concerning their great general assembly, when all the righteous shall be gathered to Christ, to be parted from Him no more forever.
I. To begin then, from our text it seems that BELIEVERS IN CHRIST ARE DESCRIBED AS THE CHURCH OF THE FIRST-BORN. I shall try to make my remarks, as I utter them, self-examining, so that you and I may question ourselves to see whether we belong to this general assembly.
By the term “first-born” is often meant, in Scripture, the most excellent, the chief. Jesus Christ, because of the excellence of His Character, is said to be “the first-born among many brethren,” “the first-born of every creature,” “the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He might have the preeminence.” So, although Believers are, by nature, the child-
ren of wrath, even as others, yet, after Christ has renewed them, they become the excellent of the earth in whom should be all our delight. Point me out a man who makes a profession of religion, but who is a drunk, and I will tell him at once that his profession is a lie! Show me another who says he is a follower of Christ, although he oppresses the poor, defrauds the laborer of his wages, is a covetous man who cares only for himself and shuts up his heart of compassion from his needy brethren—and I hesitate not to ask, “How dwells the love of God in him?” If the “Grace” we profess to have does not make us better than others, the sooner we get rid of it, the better! “What do you do more than others?” was the question of Christ to His disciples. “If you lend to them, of whom you hope to receive, what thanks have you? For sinners also lend to sinners, to receive as much again.” Of Christians there is something to be expected that is not to be looked for in others—they profess to be twice-born, and to have God dwelling in them, as Paul says to the Corinthians, “Know you not that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?” Christians profess to be heirs of Heaven and members of the mystical body of Christ, so shall they talk and act as the ungodly do, and demean themselves as those do who have never received this new and higher life? God forbid! When Divine Grace comes, it lifts us up and keeps us up! And makes us new creatures in Christ Jesus, so that the evil things in which we once delighted, we do not so much as name, while anything that is virtuous or of good repute we pant after, that we may exhibit it to the praise of His Grace who has called us according to the counsel of His own will.