The Living Word
A Study of Hebrews 4:12-13 By Pastor Brian Larson
For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do. Hebrews 4:12-13
When I was a youth pastor, my wife Joyce and I hosted a Friday evening Bible study for high school kids in our apartment living room. I’ll never forget a kid named Henry, a junior who was brought by a friend one Friday night. He seemed very interested in our study of the Word. After that, I saw Henry every week. He was obviously on fire for the Lord. After each study, Joyce would offer the kids cookies or cupcakes and they would hang out for awhile. One night, after he had been coming for a few months, I asked, “Henry, how did you come to the Lord?” I assumed he had already been an active Christian who just happened on our Bible study and liked it.
“The first Friday I came here you were teaching out of Ephesians about the old man as opposed to the new man, and it pierced my heart!” Henry replied. “I knew that’s what I needed. I invited Jesus to come into my life and to be that new man in me that evening.”
It blew me away! Henry proved what Paul says in Romans 10:17:
So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.
This junior in high school listened to the Word, believed it, and received it. It worked that sharp two-edged sword work in his innermost being which the Word of God has not only the capability, but the reputation for doing. It’s like Peter says in 1 Peter 1:23:
…for you have been born again not of seed which is perishable but imperishable, that is, through the living and enduring word of God.
What happened in Henry’s life is simply an example of that which has happened, in one way or another, in the life of every single believer. The truth of the reality of the transforming work of God’s Word is what is now focused upon as we come into this section in Hebrews chapter four. The context is that we are being called. The Holy Spirit is putting His finger on each of us and is calling us into the spiritual rest of God.
Notice what he said in verse 1:
Therefore, let us fear if, while a promise remains of entering His rest, any one of you may seem to have come short of it …
The rest of God is, first of all, resting in the finished work of Jesus Christ at Calvary. It means not striving to earn your salvation nor working to somehow merit your standing with God. The attitude that indicates, I really believe I am in good standing with God because I’ve been doing good, misses the mark completely! It doesn’t work that way. In Romans chapter 3, Paul says:
There is none righteousness, not even one…for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
His rest is simply receiving that standing with Him, that wonderful eternal salvation as His gift to you—as undeserving and unworthy as you know you are. It’s resting in His plan and His purpose for your life.
It’s also resting in the confidence of His faithfulness. After all, He is the living sovereign Lord and God, He is your Creator and He is the sustainer of all things! He cares about you and He can take care of you. It is resting in His faithfulness to guide, to lead you, and to help you on a daily basis. That’s entering His rest.
He says in verse 10:
For the one who has entered His rest has himself also rested from his own works, as God did from His [the seventh day of creation].
Here’s the point in verse 11:
Therefore let us be diligent to enter that rest so that no one will fall, through following the same example of disobedience [referring to the children of Israel in the wilderness].
The Indispensable Word
In verses 12 and 13 of Hebrews chapter 4, I submit to you, the Holy Spirit gives us four reasons that the Bible, the Word of God, is an indispensable part of entering into that rest, and an indispensable part of avoiding the alternative. He says in verse 11:
Therefore let us be diligent to enter that rest …
And, with that, he says in verse 12:
For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword; and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.
1. The Word is Alive
Notice, first of all, this Word is a living Word. It alone is a living Word. In verse 12, he says it’s “living and active.” To my knowledge, this is the only book that declares its word to be living. It’s not just dead letters on a page. It’s actually living. We’re told in 2 Timothy 3:16:
All Scripture is inspired by God.
That word “inspired” is a very interesting word in the Greek because it literally means “God-breathed.” The first time the Bible records that God breathed, do you know what happened? Man became a living soul! Grab this, that lump of clay did not become an animate object—he became a living soul. There’s a lot of difference there! Then God breathed again and the result is the Word of God. It’s alive.
Some years ago, an eminent English scholar of classical Greek texts named E.V. Rieu was hired to translate the gospels in what is known as the Penguin Classic series. Even though he was not a believer, he was hired because of his scholarly ability. Before he finished his translating work, however, he was not an unbeliever anymore. J.B. Phillips, another English scholar who translated the New Testament into a paraphrase version (that I really enjoy), interviewed Rieu on BBC. Read just a little bit of that interview:
Rieu says, “My personal reason for doing this was my own intense desire to satisfy myself as to the authenticity and spiritual content of the gospels and, if I received any new light by an intensive study of the Greek originals, to pass it on to others. I approached them in the same spirit that I would have approached them had they been presented to me as recently discovered Greek manuscripts.”
Phillips then asks, “Did you get the feeling that the whole material is extraordinarily alive? I got the feeling that the whole thing was alive, even while one is translating. Even though one did a dozen versions of a particular passage, it was still living. Did you get that feeling?”
Rieu: “I got the deepest feeling that I could possibly have expected. It changed me. My work changed me. I came to the conclusion that these words bear the seal of the Son of Man and the Son of God and they’re the Magna Charta of the human spirit.”
The Word of God Is Uniquely Living
Now, the writer of Hebrews says it’s “active.” That means it busily goes about accomplishing its purpose. It’s doing its thing. Isn’t that cool? The Word of God is doing its thing. I like the way the Lord put it in Isaiah 55:10-11:
“For as the rain and snow come down from heaven And do not return there without watering the earth and making it bear and sprout, And furnishing seed to the sower and bread to the eater; so will my word be which goes forth from My mouth; it will not return to me empty without accomplishing what I desire, And without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it.”
That was what happened to Henry.
Do you know what Jesus said about the Word of God in Matthew 4:4 when He was being tempted by the devil himself? Jesus quoted Deuteronomy and said:
“Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.”
He couldn’t have said it any more emphatically.
I remember hearing the story of a Christian talking to an agnostic who was sort of poo-pooing everything about being a believer and going to church. The agnostic’s comment was, “I went to church quite a bit at one point in my life and, I’ve got to be honest with you, I don’t remember one single sermon that I ever heard. I can’t see that those sermons did me any good.”
Do you know what the Christian’s response to that was? “Well, I’ve been married for about 30 years to my wife and she’s been fixing meals for me for those 30 years. To be honest with you, I can’t remember any particular meal she prepared for me. But I have the sneaking suspicion that if I hadn’t eaten them, I wouldn’t be here today.”
We don’t get excited about every meal we eat; but it nourishes us, nonetheless, doesn’t it? In Romans 12:2, our Lord tells us through Paul:
And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.
The renewing of your mind—that’s a work of the Word of God, that’s how it happens. It’s living and it is active.
You probably know that Martin Luther was the man credited with beginning the Protestant Reformation in a very dark 16th century Europe. Luther made this statement regarding that spiritual revolution.
“I simply taught, preached and wrote God’s Word. Otherwise, I did nothing. And while I slept or drank Wittenberg beer with my Phillip and my Amsdorf [two friends of his], the Word so greatly weakened the papacy that never a prince or an emperor inflicted such damage upon it. I did nothing. The Word did it all.”
In the late 1960s, there was a pastor who had been moving from church to church for 17 years, who more and more felt like the Lord was telling him that what the body of Christ really needs is the Word of God. Nourish them on the Word. Feed them the Word. He agreed to pastor a little church of about a dozen or so people who had, just prior to hiring him, thought, Maybe we should disband. Oh, let’s try once more. Let’s get one more pastor and see if anything can happen here. As that pastor drove to his first meeting, he thought, Lord, I don’t know what You’re going to do here but, Lord, by Your grace, I want this to be the best-fed, best-loved little body of believers in the area. Here I am.
He began to take this Word and just teach it to those people. Hippies started coming, so he shared the Word with hippies. The result was such a big, incredible movement of God’s spirit that I remember the front cover of Time Magazine showing the baptism of hundreds out in Newport Harbor. Chuck Smith and the now-worldwide Calvary Chapel movement is history from there. People would ask Pastor Chuck, “What’s going on? How do you do that?”
“Feed them the Word,” Chuck would say. “Feed them the Word.” Chuck liked to tell pastors, “Healthy sheep will reproduce.” Feed them the Word.
This Word is as living and active today as it was the day the Lord God Himself breathed it to those apostles and those prophets. He doesn’t say, For the Word of God used to be living, and it was active at one time! You wouldn’t believe that there was a time that it was sharper than any two-edged sword; but of course, we’re in the 21st century now and all that has changed. It doesn’t say that! It does say, it is living, it is active, it is sharper than any two-edged sword.
2. It Penetrates Where Nothing Else Can
So not only is it a living Word, but it is also a penetrating Word. He goes on and says that the Word is “… sharper than any two-edged sword; and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow...” In other words, it’s of the psyche, of the emotions, of the soul. It affects a person’s feelings, but has no spiritual substance to it at all. Sometimes you’ll hear people say things like this, Oh, how the Spirit moved! It moved in waves over the congregation! Oh, what an incredible experience!
There’s no doubt in my mind they had a wonderful experience. But the question is, was that of the Holy Spirit? Was that spiritual? Case in point, not too long ago, there was a world-renowned, highly publicized movement that took place called “holy laughter.” It began in South Africa, and spread around, settling in Toronto on the North American continent. People traveled by bus, plane or train to get to Toronto, just to experience what was going on there. In the process of the service, there would be this outbreak of uncontrollable hilarious laughter that left people with sides aching and tears streaming down their faces. The experience of thousands of people engaged in riotous laughter was being billed as a great modern movement of the Holy Spirit. After a period of time, however, it became obvious that there was no life there. This very charismatic denomination finally came to the point themselves where they denounced the whole thing and separated themselves from that movement. It became apparent to them, after a period of time that it was not of the Lord, even after they had been so convinced that it was.
Right there is one reason I want to stand in and upon the Word of God; it decides and discerns things like that. How? One way is to believe that if you don’t see it in the Word, you don’t need it. When the Holy Spirit fell on the church initially in Acts chapter 2, and Peter got up and preached his very first sermon, the people were saying, What in the world is going on with those people? They’re speaking in strange languages they don’t know, and we’re hearing them in our own local tongues. They’ve got to be drunk! Peter got up, turned to the Word and said, What you see here is prophesied by Joel. He recited the prophecy and basically said this right here is that right there.” He pointed them right to the Word. Deciding whether something is spiritual or just soulish can be hard to discern. That’s where the Word comes in. It divides, separates, and brings you to that which is of the Spirit.
This is very important: It is only the Word that brings spiritual growth. There is such a thing as spiritual growth and it’s the Word that brings it—and only the Word that brings spiritual growth.
So, as Peter says in 1 Peter 2:2:
…like newborn babies, long for the pure milk of the word, so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation.
Paul says in 2 Timothy chapter 3:
All Scripture is inspired by God … so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.
I was talking to a brother awhile back about a great experience he had. He was saying (I hear this quite a bit), Brian, you need to go! It was so incredible, you just need to go there and have that experience.
I just had to tell him, “I’m sorry, but I’m not interested. I don’t feel the need to do that. I would rather just sit under the teaching of God’s Word any time.”
Brethren, I am a believer in the present ministry of the Holy Spirit in all His power. But I’ve seen people seeking out experiences as the priority of their Christian life and walk. We’ve had people come and we’ve had people go here at Calvary and, I’m going to be honest with you, there are people who have left here because they feel we’re not charismatic enough. To them, we’re quenching the Holy Spirit here. They’ve got to go where things are happening and you’re really free. Well, I’ve lived up here a long time, so I’ve run into these people periodically over the years. I just love them in the Lord and hope they’re growing in the Lord. I don’t feel that Calvary Chapel is the cure-all and the answer for everything and everyone. But I’ll tell you what I’ve noticed: those people who have gone out looking for greater experiences, 20 years later are merely living from one experience to another experience. They’re the same! I don’t see any growth. I see a baby in Christ still riding an emotional roller coaster.
I do not in any way intend to discredit spiritual experiences. Thank you, Lord, for them. But it’s like Jesus said to the crowd that followed him because of the miracles: “An evil and adulterous generation craves for a sign ...” He had the words of life for them—that’s the important thing. It’s the Word of God and the Word of God alone that can penetrate right in there, give life and do a meaningful work deep inside any person.
“The Pilgrim’s Progress” is a classic written in 1677 by John Bunyan. It’s an allegorical story about the Christian life. Bunyan gave funny names to the people in the story, like a man who is called “Mr. Great-Heart” who had just been in a sword battle. After the battle (which is a spiritual allegory), he takes a little respite from the battle, huffs and puffs as he sits down to rest. Mr. Great-Heart sits next to Mr. Valiant-for-truth and gestures to him in a very approving way. Then he makes this statement, “‘Thou hast worthily behaved thyself. Let me see thy sword.’ So he showed it him. When he had taken it into his hand and looked thereon awhile, he said, ‘Ha! It is a right Jerusalem blade.’
“Then said Mr. Valiant-for-truth, ‘It is so. Let a man have one of these blades with a hand to wield it, and skill to use it, and he may venture upon an angel with it. He need not fear its holding if he can but tell how to lay on. Its edge will never blunt. It will cut flesh and bones, and soul, and spirit, and all.’”
It gets in there—wow! The Word is “sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the dividing asunder of even the soul and the spirit.”
George Whitefield was an 18th-century English evangelist who came to the colonies on occasion to evangelize. In Bristol, England, where Whitefield lived, there was a group called the Hellfire Club which met at a local tavern. You can imagine what that club must have been like. There was a man named Thorpe, a member of the Hellfire Club, who one day got up and mimicked George Whitefield. This group loved to mock George Whitefield. He got up and he did a perfect imitation of George Whitefield preaching. He had the voice, the inflections and all the motions down pat. After delivering a mocking, yet entertaining Whitefield sermon, Thorpe sat down, was convicted by his own words and was converted to Jesus Christ right on the spot. The Word of God was doing a work in his heart even while he was mimicking Whitefield. Thorpe went on to be a dynamic Christian in Bristol.
“Sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow.”
That’s a poetic way of saying, God’s Word gets into a person where nothing and no one else can go. It has the power to get in you and upon you like nothing else. Notice here, the Word will do that to the whole person. He’s included it all—body, soul, and spirit. So it’s a penetrating Word.
I know my words are not very penetrating. All I have to do is sit in my living room and try to talk to my family to find out how un-penetrating my words are. I sit there explaining something while everybody else goes off in other conversations. Don’t you know that the pastor of Calvary Chapel is speaking right now? Can we have a little respect here?
No! You’re Dad. This is family.
Do you ever feel like, There’s nothing I can say? Well, you’re absolutely right. It’s the Word of God that penetrates where your words can’t.
3. It Is a Discerning Word
So, it’s living and it’s penetrating. Notice, he ends that verse with these words, “…and it’s able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” So, thirdly, it is a discerning word. That word “judge” in the Greek is “criticos.” We get our word “critic” from it. The idea is it has got discerning judgments, right down to the very thoughts and the attitudes of a person’s heart.
Do you realize that our own hearts can deceive us? Listen to what the Lord says through Jeremiah in chapter 17, verse 9:
“The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick. Who can understand it?”
There’s a clear warning there. Your heart can deceive you more than anyone or anything else can deceive you.
What is alarming is that we’re living in a culture that, more and more, has the attitude, Man, it seems so right, how can it be wrong? Now, that’s the world we live in; what is really tragic is when Christians are buying into that kind of an attitude, one that thinks, There’s nothing wrong with this. I can just tell! I can just feel that it’s right! Nobody can tell me that it’s wrong. If you believe that about something, you are in danger of being deceived by your own heart.
An example of this heart deception is the story of Israel in the Promised Land during that period before they had a king. That era is summed up in Judges 17:6 where it says:
In those days there was no king in Israel; every man did what was right in his own eyes.
What did that lead them? That era is described in chapter 3, verse 7, like this:
The sons of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the LORD and forgot the LORD their God and served the Baals and the Asheroth [the idol gods of the Canaanites].
If you look at those gods and what they stood for, you’ll see that they were serving power and sex—that’s what they were into. It’s sort of like they were saying, Getting what I feel I need and I want for me is most important here. Sensual gratification is a need, a necessity and a must—however I can get it. Read to the end of Judges and you’ll discover what a royal mess Israel had become.
The Word of God alone cuts through that phony veneer. It shines the light, shows the way of life and points out clearly the way of godliness. It’s like the writer of Hebrews is saying in this passage, What do we do with that? Brethren, we believe! We believe it, we submit to it, we follow the Word of the living God. I submit to you, I declare to you, I challenge you to do that and see what happens!
A while back I read the story of a deep sea diver who got down so low, lower than he had ever been before, to a dangerous point, as a matter of fact, where he wasn’t sure he even had enough air left to get to the surface. It was so dark down there that he was disoriented. He looked at the meter that he had on his suit, and the meter said that the way to the surface was straight down. Everything inside of him was saying, I’ve got to go up! I’ve got to go this way. And the meter was saying, Go down! He hit it, shook it, then looked at it again, yet the meter would not change. Did the meter break? he wondered. Is the meter off in this case? Does it not work right here, right now? Did something happen to my meter? I know it’s been a good meter, but right now in this situation, I’m not sure I can trust it. Everything inside of me says, ‘Go this way!’ This is the way I need to go. This is the way of life! I’ll die if I go the other way! I’ve got to go this way!
So, he had to make a life-and-death decision right there in that water. Which way am I going to go? He chose to go the way of the meter and started swimming down. Lo and behold, he found light and life. The meter pointed him in the direction of life and so it is with God’s Word.
That heart of yours can deceive you!
We’re told by the Lord Himself in Psalm 119:105:
Your Word is a lamp to my feet
And a light to my path.
In this crazy, mixed-up, confused world, here it is! Paul said:
Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.
The Word is the way of light and life—guaranteed by the Lord. It’s a discerning Word.
4. The Word Prepares Us For the Day of Reckoning
This Word is powerful, it’s living, it’s active, it’s life. It has the power to penetrate where nothing else can penetrate. It will also give you the truth, it will say it the way it is, it will lay it out for you as clearly as can be! With that, he reminds us in verse 13:
And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.
So his fourth point is that it is the Word alone that prepares us for that coming day of reckoning. We are “open and laid bare” before Him. There’s no more powerful way of saying we stand naked and exposed before the Living God. A.W. Tozer put it well in one sentence—and what a sentence it is:
“God knows instantly and effortlessly all matter and all matters, all mind and every mind, all spirit and every spirit, all being and every being, all creaturehood and all creatures, every plurality and all pluralities, all law and every law, all relations, all causes, all thoughts, all mysteries, all enigmas, all feelings, all desires, every unuttered secret, all thrones and dominions, all personalities, all things visible and invisible in heaven and in earth, motion, space, time, life, death, good, evil, heaven and hell.”
How do you like that for one sentence?
It’s all open and laid bare before Him. You know, that phrase “laid bare” is an interesting word in the Greek. It means to twist the neck, or to take hold by the throat. It was commonly used in two ways in the secular Greek world. It was a wrestling term for when a man had his opponent by the throat, face-to-face, and had rendered him helpless; the opponent realized that his life was now in the hands of the other man—laid bare. It was also used in the court system of ancient Greece and Rome when somebody was accused of a heinous crime and had to stand before his accusers and the judge. They would put a dagger under his chin, right at his throat, so that he could not bow his head in shame. He was forced to stand, head up, to face his accusers and judges. He was not allowed to turn his head away or bow his head. He had to stand and face everyone, openly, shamefully.
Now, brethren, “to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.” You may be really good at pulling the wool over people’s eyes—but not His! The NIV translates that, “... with whom we must give an account.” The Living Bible goes this direction, “... to whom we must explain all that we have done.” Phew! God’s loving, gracious Word not only shows you the way of life, the way of godliness, it also shows you the truth. It exposes it so that you might be healed, lays you bare that you might be forgiven. The Word of God leads you and shows you the place of forgiveness, the place of pardon, the place of cleansing. It brings you to the realization that there’s only one real place of rest around here and it’s in the finished work of Jesus Christ at Calvary. It’s in Him as the Lord and Savior of your life. Because it’s the living Word, it’s there to help you. I like the way the psalmist puts it in Psalm 119:50:
This is my comfort in my affliction, That Your word has revived me.
How many times I have heard — and I thank God totally for this — people who are going through something who will say to me, That is exactly what I needed to hear this morning! I needed to hear that this morning! Everybody in this auditorium could have been dismissed — it was just for me! You know the cool thing about that? Nothing in their circumstances has changed a bit! Nothing! But they’ve been revived by the Word of God. The Word of God has infused them with new life. They’ve been encouraged and comforted by the Word of God. They’ve been assured by the Word of God that God hasn’t dropped them, that He’s going to do something because they are His children.
So, brethren, it’s the Bible. “Bible” is actually a Greek word, “biblios.” You know what the word means? “Book.” It’s the book, the book of life. I like this little acronym, BIBLE, which stands for Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth.
How does this sharp two-edged sword work? One edge of the sword is judgment. It gets in there and lays bare, opens up, shows it the way it is and lays it before you. It kills that self-righteousness, that self-justification and massacres that flawed thinking of your deceived heart. The truth leaves you bare.
But for he who will believe, the flip-side of that blade is sanctification, because it brings you the hope and the assurance of life in Jesus Christ. It helps separate you from sin.
In Psalm 119:11, the psalmist says:
Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee.
In John 15:3, Jesus told his disciples:
“You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you.”
The Word works by renewing, cleansing and bringing growth. The interesting thing about growth is that you never feel like you’re growing. You just discover you have grown.
It’s the source of new life to you. Jesus told His disciples in John 8:
“If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”
I like the way one person put it, God cuts us deeply that we might die. God cuts us again with His Word that we might live.
So, brethren, believe Him. Be in it. Make it the book of your life. Enter that rest. It’s really there, because God is for real.
Let’s pray.
Heavenly Father, thank You that You have placed a book in our hands. Thank You that it’s not a 1,000-volume, 1,500-pages-each set that we could never get through, but it’s one little book. Thank You that it’s simple enough that a child can read it, yet life-changing enough that a scholar can be challenged for the rest of his life by its words. Thank You that You have declared to us it’s enough; it’s perfectly adequate for our walk in this life. Thank You that it cries out to us Your unconditional love and Your provision, purchased, accomplished totally on Your part for us, that we might have life the way You intended it, and that we might have life eternally in a far, far better place. Thank You that you love us that much, that this book is actually a love letter from You to us because You care. Thank You that You have proven that it is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the dividing of the soul and spirit, of the joints and marrow, and as a judge of the very thoughts and intentions of the heart. You’ve proven that for 2,000 years and counting. Thank You in the precious name of He Who the book is about: Jesus Christ. In His name, Amen.
Listen to Pastor Brian’s teaching on Hebrews 4:12-13, “The Living Word”:
