See that you refuse not him that speaks. For if they escaped not who refused him that spoke on earth, much more shall we not escape, if we turn away from him that speaks from heaven:
All Commentaries on Hebrews 12:25 Go To Hebrews 12
John Chrysostom
AD 407
See that you refuse not Him that speaks; that is, that you reject [Him] not. For if they escaped not who refused Him that spoke on earth. Whom does he mean? Moses, I suppose. But what he says is this: if they, having refused Him when He gave laws on earth, did not escape, how shall we refuse Him, when He gives laws from Heaven? He declares here not that He is another; far from it. He does not set forth One and Another, but He appears terrible, when uttering His Voice from Heaven. It is He Himself then, both the one and the other: but the One is terrible. For he expresses not a difference of Persons but of the gift. Whence does this appear? For if they escaped not, he says, who refused Him that spoke on earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from Him that speaks from heaven. What then? Is this one different from the other? How then does he say, whose voice then shook the earth? For it was the voice of Him who then gave the Law, which shook the earth. But now has He promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven. And this word Yet once more, signifies the removing of those things which are shaken, as of things that are made. All things therefore will be taken away, and will be compacted anew for the better. For this is what he suggests here. Why then do you grieve when you suffer in a world that abides not; when you are afflicted in a world which will very shortly have passed away? If our rest were [to be] in the latter period of the world, then one ought to be afflicted in looking to the end.
