Wednesday, October 29, 2014
Hebrews 12:22-23 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, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven.
MOUNT ZION
When King David conquered the Jebusite stronghold called "Zion," this southern hill of Jerusalem became known as "the city of David." After his death, when his son, King Solomon, began to build the first temple, it was not on Zion but on Moriah, a little to the north. The temple, however, was central to the people who worshiped Jehovah, and soon the hill upon which it was built began to be called "Zion." Then the temple itself, the city of Jerusalem, and finally the "world to come" were also at times referred to as "Zion."
The writer to the Hebrews associates the term with "the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven," the Holy Christian Church. The organized church in which Luther grew up liked to identify itself as that Holy Christian Church, the assembly of Jesus Christ, outside of which is no salvation.
But the Mount Zion of which Hebrews 12:22 speaks is not one that can be touched (Hebrews 12:18), not an external organization, neither the Roman Catholic nor the Lutheran nor any other. This is the assembly of all those who gather around, hear, and treasure in their heart the "firstborn among many brothers" (Romans 8:29), "the firstborn from the dead" (Colossians 1:18), the Christ of God.
Preserve, O Lord, Your Zion,
Bought dearly with Your blood;
Protect what You have chosen
Against the foes' dread brood.
Be now her great Defender
When dangers gather round;
E'en though the earth be crumbling,
Safe will Your Church be found.
(The Lutheran Hymnal, 264:3)
