Yet Once More

Hebrews 12:25-29 · Haggai 2:6 · Revelation 21

The Voice That Speaks Again

At Sinai the Father spoke, and the ground shook. Hebrews 12 says He will speak one more time. That time heaven will shake as well as the earth, and the only thing left standing will be His kingdom.

Hebrews 12:25-29

See that ye refuse not him that speaketh. For if they escaped not who refused him that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven: whose voice then shook the earth: but now he hath promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven. And this word, Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain. Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear: for our God is a consuming fire.

The passage holds three things: one voice, two shakings, and one kingdom that remains.

The First Time: The Voice Shook the Earth

These verses come right after the two mountains of Hebrews 12:18-24, Sinai and Mount Sion. At Sinai Israel saw no shape. They heard a voice, and the mountain shook.

Exodus 19:18

And mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke, because Yahuah descended upon it in fire: and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount quaked greatly.

Deuteronomy 4:12

And Yahuah spake unto you out of the midst of the fire: ye heard the voice of the words, but saw no similitude; only ye heard a voice.

The people could not bear to hear it, so they begged Moses to speak to them in Yahuah’s place (Exodus 20:19). Hebrews 12:19 says they “intreated that the word should not be spoken to them any more.” In verse 25 the warning uses the same Greek word.

παραιτέομαι (paraiteomai, G3868): to beg off, to ask to be excused. At Sinai Israel begged off from the Father’s voice. Hebrews warns believers not to beg off from that same voice now that it speaks from heaven.

Whose Voice Is It?

Some teachers say the voice in these verses belongs to the Son. They claim He spoke at Sinai before He was born, and they use that claim to build a Trinity. The passage itself does not allow it.

The promise “Yet once more I shake… heaven” is quoted from Haggai 2:6, and in Haggai the line begins, “thus saith Yahuah of hosts.” The last words of the passage, “our God is a consuming fire,” come from Moses: “Yahuah thy God is a consuming fire” (Deuteronomy 4:24). Hebrews also says when the Son became the one Yahuah speaks through. It was not at Sinai. It was “in these last days.”

Hebrews 1:1-2

God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son.

So the Father is the one speaking, and the Son is the one He speaks by. That is the same pattern the Father set at the Jordan and on the high mountain. His voice came from heaven, it pointed to the Son, and it told people to listen: “hear ye him.” Refusing the Son means refusing the Father who sent Him.

The Last Time: Yet Once More

Haggai spoke these words to the small group who had come back from Babylon.

Haggai 2:6

For thus saith Yahuah of hosts; Yet once, it is a little while, and I will shake the heavens, and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land.

Hebrews puts its weight on one small word.

ἅπαξ (hapax, G530): once, one time only. Hebrews uses the same word for Messiah offered “once” (9:28) and for men who die “once” (9:27).

“Yet once more” means one last time. Sinai was the first shaking, there is one more to come, and after that there is no other. That rules out the familiar chain of end-time events: a secret rapture, then seven years, then a thousand-year kingdom on this earth, and only after all of that a new heaven and earth. Hebrews describes a single final shaking. After it, the things that were shaken are taken away and the things that cannot be shaken remain. The righteous are not removed from the earth. They are the ones still standing.

What Remains: A Kingdom That Cannot Be Moved

The shaking removes “things that are made.” Everything that was built, was only a copy, or wears out like a garment comes down. One thing stays.

The kingdom stays, and it is the Father who gives it.

Luke 12:32

Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.

Hebrews says “we receiving,” which is present tense. Believers are receiving this kingdom now. They are not waiting for it to be set up on this earth at some later date. So the passage ends by telling them what to do today: hold on to the favor they have been given, serve Yahuah with reverence, and remember that the fire on Sinai has not gone out. “Our God is a consuming fire.”

The Final Word from the Throne

Revelation shows that last word being spoken.

Revelation 21:1-3

And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea. And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven… And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them.

Haggai said heaven, earth, sea, and dry land would be shaken. In Revelation 21:1 all of them are gone, even the sea. What remains is the city that comes down from God, announced by a voice out of heaven.

Revelation 21:5, 7

And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new… He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son.

This is the same Father. At Sinai He spoke and the earth shook. At the Jordan He said, “This is my beloved Son.” On the mountain He said, “hear ye him.” From the throne He now says to everyone who overcomes, “he shall be my son.” The voice that once made Israel tremble speaks the last word, and all that remains is the kingdom that cannot be moved.