There’s no getting around it. God is all-powerful, the One Who created the world with the Word of His power in order to display His glory. And God created all of us in His own image, in order that we might worship and serve Him (12:28). And God has told us how He wants us to live – in reverence and awe for Him, and in genuine love for others.

But because we have turned away from God, because we prefer our own will, following our own way, it is easy to be afraid of God. After all, when God came to Mount Sinai to tell His people how He wanted them to live, they ran from Him in fear, begging that God would stop speaking to them (12:19) Indeed, even Moses, the one with whom God spoke directly, trembled in the presence of God (12:21).

And many people stop there, viewing the Christian faith as simply a list of do’s and don’ts, trying to obey God simply out of guilt and fear. But nobody can keep that up for long. No, fear-based religion either breaks down into legalism, as we try to diminish the requirements of God’s righteous rules, or degenerates into hypocrisy, as we claim a holiness for ourselves that we don’t actually possess.

That’s why our author urges us to leave Mt. Sinai – the place where God gave us His law, and head to Mt. Zion, the place where Jesus died. For if it is true that we deserve the anger of our God Who is a consuming fire (12:29), it is also true that God Himself in the Person of Jesus Christ has absorbed our punishment, shedding His blood so that we might be forgiven (12:24). And in the process, He has made a new and better covenant with us, making it possible for all who trust in Him to enter the presence of God in holiness (12:23).

So, why should we turn away from such a sacrifice? Why should we reject Jesus’ words of love and grace? Doesn’t it make more sense to accept His pardon, living in gratitude and service to Him? Why would anyone want to go on living in fear instead?

Hebrews 12:18-29 (ESV)

18 For you have not come to what may be touched, a blazing fire and darkness and gloom and a tempest
19 and the sound of a trumpet and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that no further messages be spoken to them.
20 For they could not endure the order that was given, “If even a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned.”
21 Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, “I tremble with fear.”
22 But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering,
23 and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect,
24 and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.
25 See that you do not refuse him who is speaking. For if they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape if we reject him who warns from heaven.
26 At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, “Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens.”
27 This phrase, “Yet once more,” indicates the removal of things that are shaken– that is, things that have been made– in order that the things that cannot be shaken may remain.
28 Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe,
29 for our God is a consuming fire.