Journal: Tyndale Bulletin
Volume: TYNBUL 55:2 (NA 2004)
Article: ‘The One Who Is Speaking’ In Hebrews 12:25
Author: Gene R. Smillie

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TynBul 55:2 (2004) p. 275

‘The One Who Is Speaking’ In Hebrews 12:25

Gene Smillie

Summary

This treatment of whether the author refers to Jesus, or more generally to God, as ‘the one who is speaking’ (ὁ λαλῶν), in Hebrews 12:25 takes into account the possible relationship of the nearly identical participles λαλοῦντι in verse 24b and τὸν λαλοῦντα in verse 25a. The antecedent of λαλοῦντι in verse 24 is problematic; many translations refer to ‘the blood that speaks better than the blood of Abel’, but this interpolation may be misleading. The author’s argument in the near context suggests that the one now speaking from heaven is the same God who spoke from Sinai on earth. The added implication that he speaks through the author’s own written words is significant for understanding the hermeneutic of Hebrews.

1. Introduction

For centuries, indeed millennia, many readers of Scripture have shared in common an understanding of the Bible as a way – in fact, the principal means – by which the living God speaks to his people. The written Word of God is ‘listened to’ by earnest disciples of Jesus Christ in the expectation that God himself will address them therein. This attitude towards the written word is not a recent theological aberration invented by enthusiasts on the margins of orthodoxy (or neo-orthodoxy), or by post-modern reader response critics; it has been held widely by the community of the faithful down through the ages. However, it may legitimately be asked whether the Bible itself makes such claims. That is, did the writers of Scripture understand what they were writing to be a vehicle for (direct) divine communication? The New Testament book or letter (or sermon) called ‘To the Hebrews’

TynBul 55:2 (2004) p. 276

does in fact evidence such a view, perhaps to a greater degree than other biblical works.

The author of Hebrews regularly cites the OT as something God, or the Holy Spirit, or even Christ, ‘is saying’ to us his readers.1 He also alludes to God’s further speaking to us through the very treatise he is writing,2 and three times tells his readers to expect to hear God’s voice imminently.3 The author apparently considers his own proclamation to be inspired, much as Paul...

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