The apostle resumes his exhortation after the episode of divine discipline which had occupied the previous verses, wholesome for any but especially for such as confessed the Lord Jesus from among the Jews. Christianity deepens that personal training which Job opens to us from early days and on the broadest ground; as the book of Proverbs, which is here applied, carried it home with minute care and sententious wisdom in Israel, where Jehovah's name was known. But the figure is now enlarged, from running the race to the straight paths for the walk, specially desirable for the weak in the way; and we know from Rom. 14; 15 whence these came, and wherein weakness consisted in collision with Gentile brethren.
“Wherefore lift up the exhausted hands and the enfeebled knees; and make straight paths for your feet, that what is lame be not turned out of the way, but rather be healed. Pursue peace with all, and holiness without which no one shall see the Lord; watching [it] lest any one lack the grace of God, lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble [you] and through it many be defiled; lest [there be] any fornicator or profane person as Esau, who for one meal sold his own birthright. For ye know that, even when afterward wishing to inherit the blessing, he was rejected (for he found no place for repentance) though he sought it earnestly with tears” (Heb. 12:12-17).
We see here the all-importance of faith for the walk, as Hebrews 11 had illustrated from of old, and the Epistle throughout had urged as the spring of power and hinge of blessing for the Christian. It is failure in this respect that exposes to all feebleness; and confidence in God and the word of His grace that kindles the spark into a steady flame. To this the Jews were peculiarly prone from their system; and the thought it nourished disposed to look for immediate effects and displayed power. As Greeks seek wisdom or philosophy, Jews ask for signs; and this was apt to affect unconsciously the baptized; and disappointed expectations, which had no warrant from the truth, left them jaded, weary, and weak. Hence the call to restore the exhausted hands and enfeebled knees; and to make straight paths for their feet, that what was lame should not turn aside but rather be healed. The joy of present love and of future glory are set before us with the strongest assurance; the needed sorrow in our experience is turned into blessing by the way; and our chastening shown to be the fruit of divine love for profit, that we might be partakers of His holiness Who loves us. For so we read here of that which we are not to regard only in the light of requirement. Such is the object and end of His discipline.
But if His love be lost sight of, the hands hang down and the knees are paralyzed. Faith has no energy save in the confidence of His grace. So it is everywhere as a matter of teaching from Romans to Hebrews, and from Hebrews to the Revelation. It was always true; it is clear as light since Christ came. He Himself is the unflagging witness of it in sufferings beyond all comparison. And none can forget it without immediate loss.
Further, the word is “pursue” (which is stronger than “follow") “peace with all and the holiness without which none shall see the Lord” (Heb. 12:14). Having peace with God through our Lord Jesus, we are exhorted to seek it diligently in practice, where there are so many sources of disagreement; and this not only with one another but with all. God Himself is the God of peace; and His children are to reflect His character. But there is a still more imperative warning attached to the exhortation to “holiness,” “without (or apart from) which none shall see the Lord.” Here it is ἁγιασμός, not merely the quality in its abstract form, but in its action or its result as applied to us; and so found throughout the N. T. (Rom. 6:19, 22; 1 Cor. 1:30; 1 Thess. 4:3-4, 7; 2 Thess. 2:13; 1 Tim. 2:15; and 1 Peter 1:2). There is nothing to alarm the most timid in this, more than in all the scriptures which insist on conformity to God's will in all that are His (Rom. 2:7-11; 1 Cor. 6:9-10; 9:27; Gal. 5:19-20; 6:7-8; Eph. 5:5-7; Titus 2:12; 3:8; 1 Peter 1:14; 2:3; 2 Peter 1; 1 John 2:3; Jude; Rev. 21:8; 22:15).
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 display. 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 own 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 his own 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.