ACC ~ Hebrews 12 v12 - 13

THE DISCIPLINE IS OF LOVE. CHRYSOSTOM: Do not wonder if discipline, being itself hard, has sweet fruits; since in trees also the bark is almost destitute of all quality and rough, but the fruits are sweet. … Why, after you have endured the painful, are you despondent as to the good? The distasteful things that you had to endure you endured. Do not then become despondent when you are rewarded. He speaks as to runners and boxers and warriors. Do you see how he arms them, how he encourages them? “Walk straight,” he says. Here he speaks with reference to their thoughts; that is to say, not doubting. For if the discipline be of love, if it begin from loving care, if it end with a good result (and this he proves both by facts and by words, and by all considerations), why are you dispirited? For such are they who despair, who are not strengthened by the hope of the future. “Walk straight,” he says, that your lameness may not be increased but brought back to its former condition. For he that runs when he is lame galls the sore place. Do you see that it is in our power to be thoroughly healed? ON THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS 30.1.

REPENTANCE FOR THOSE WHO HAVE SINNED. THEODORE OF MOPSUESTIA: Where are those who say that the apostle in this epistle precludes repentance by saying, “It is impossible to renew again thereafter to repentance those once enlightened”? How then do they understand these words: “Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees”? What sort of healing of the lame does this apostle, who allegedly does not believe in a repentance for those who have sinned, wish to take place? It is clear he writes these things to believers in that he says to them: “Recall the former days when, after you were enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings.” FRAGMENTS ON THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS 12.12-13.

YOU WHO ARE CAST DOWN. ORIGEN: Nevertheless, since Jesus recites the law to you and reveals to your hearts its spiritual meaning, do not remain “proselytes,” that is, catechumens, any longer, but hurry to receive fully the grace of God. … And you “children,” “do not be children in your thinking; be babes in evil, but in thinking be mature.”As the apostle says to the Hebrews, “Let us leave the elementary doctrines of Christ and go on to maturity.” But you, too, who under the title women are weak, cast down and tired, you are exhorted to “lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees.” HOMILIES ON JOSHUA 9.9.

LAMENESS OF TRANSGRESSION. EPHREM THE SYRIAN: “Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees,” that is, “make straight paths for your feet” throughout the afflictions caused by your persecutors, so that they may not slip. [Do this] “so that what is lame,” that is, those who transgressed through the denial of faith, “may not be put out of joint” and increase the power of sin “but rather be healed,” so that, through his healing, sin may be affected by sickness. COMMENTARY ON THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS 12.