BY CONSTANT USE
A Mini Study in the Book of Hebrews Hebrews 5:14 + Hebrews 12:7, 11 Jay Bell — May 16, 2018
“But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.”
— Hebrews 5:14
“Endure hardship as discipline… it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.”
— Hebrews 12:7, 11
The book of Hebrews is a Spirit-filled invitation to grow up. It begins with God speaking to us by His Son and ends with that same Son, the great Shepherd of the sheep, equipping us with everything good for doing His will. Between those two bookends, we are shown how people who are “not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness” (Hebrews 5:13) can, by constant use of God’s Word and by enduring His discipline, become “the spirits of the righteous made perfect” (Hebrews 12:23). The journey is not abstract. It is intensely practical. God speaks, our hearts either soften or harden, and our response to His voice decides whether we drift away or draw near, whether we shrink back or move forward by faith. Hebrews ties together the blood of Jesus, the voice of God, the house of God, the discipline of God, and the hope of the city to come — and it shows us that maturity comes “by constant use,” not by occasional inspiration.
Hebrews 5:11–14 diagnoses the problem: believers who ought to be teachers are still needing milk. They have grown dull of hearing and need to be re-taught the elementary truths of God’s Word. What they lack is “the teaching about righteousness,” and what they need is to become the mature “who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.” Hebrews 4:12–13 explains the tool God uses: the living and active Word of God, sharper than any double-edged sword, penetrating to the division of soul and spirit and judging the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. The constant use of this Word allows us to see through the lies of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and discern truth in the middle of confusion. Jesus Himself modeled this in the wilderness when He answered Satan, “Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4). Hebrews then shows us who this “man” is — the Son of Man made like His brothers in every way, perfected through sufferings, and now bringing many sons and daughters to glory (Hebrews 2:6–11, 17).
At the core of Hebrews is a simple but piercing theme: God speaks — do not harden your heart. “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts” is repeated again and again (Hebrews 3:7–8, 15; 4:7). The issue is not whether God is speaking, but whether we are listening. Our sin nature distorts our hearing just as Jesus describes in Matthew 13 — people see but do not see, hear but do not hear, because their hearts have become calloused. Hebrews calls us back to soft hearts that listen to the Shepherd’s voice. “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me,” Jesus says in John 10:27–28. Hebrews begins by saying God has now spoken to us by His Son (Hebrews 1:1–2) and ends by asking that “the Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep,” would equip us and work in us what is pleasing to Him (Hebrews 13:20–21). The whole letter can be read as an answer to one question: How does God take people who hear His Son and train them into mature, righteous, steadfast followers who enter His house, endure His discipline, and inherit His city?
Hebrews itself gives us a five-part outline of that journey — a “chapter structure” of righteousness in motion. It begins with righteous blood, moves into the teaching of righteousness, presses us to live as “my righteous one” by faith, leads us through a harvest of righteousness produced by discipline, and ends with the “righteous made perfect” in the heavenly Jerusalem. What follows is that journey, chapter by chapter.
CHAPTER ONE
Righteous Blood — The Beginning of Our Journey
Hebrews opens with the person of Jesus before it ever discusses our performance. Righteousness, in this letter, is not primarily a rule, a standard, or a code of conduct. It is a Person. In Hebrews 1:8–9, the Father speaks about the Son: “Your throne, O God, will last for ever and ever; a scepter of righteousness will be the scepter of your kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness; therefore God, your God, has set you above your companions by anointing you with the oil of joy.” The kingdom of Jesus is ruled with a scepter of righteousness because He Himself loves righteousness and hates wickedness. Before we ever talk about our righteousness, Hebrews wants us to see His righteousness — perfect, joyful, unshakable.
From there, the letter shows us Jesus as high priest. He enters not an earthly sanctuary, but the true tabernacle in heaven (Hebrews 8:1–2). He does not bring the blood of goats and calves; He enters the Most Holy Place “once for all by his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption” (Hebrews 9:11–12). His blood cleanses our consciences from dead works so that we may serve the living God (Hebrews 9:14). It inaugurates a new covenant and functions as the ransom that redeems those called, giving them the promised eternal inheritance (Hebrews 9:15–22). The result is that we now have “confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way” (Hebrews 10:19–20). Our access to God’s presence, our ability to draw near, is grounded not in our record but in His blood.
Hebrews therefore anchors our identity in this substitution: “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21). We were made in God’s image (Genesis 1:26), but sin distorted that image and banished us from His presence (Genesis 3:23–24). In Christ, that image is redeemed and the way back to the tree of life is reopened. The flaming sword that once guarded the way now finds its fulfillment in the sword of the Word that cuts us free from deceit and brings us into life. By His blood, Jesus becomes our righteousness. That is where Hebrews begins: you do not work your way into righteousness; you are brought into it by righteous blood.
CHAPTER TWO
The Teaching of Righteousness — By Constant Use
Once the foundation of righteous blood is laid, Hebrews turns to the teaching of righteousness. Hebrews 5:12–14 laments that the believers, who should be teachers by now, still need someone to reteach them the elementary truths of God’s Word. They live on milk, not solid food. The infant, it says, “is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.” The problem is not that they lack information; it is that they lack practice. They are not using what they have been given.
“By constant use” is a training phrase. It connects to Hebrews 4:12, where the Word of God is described as alive and active, sharper than a double-edged sword, judging the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. The teaching of righteousness is not merely doctrinal; it is surgical. When we submit, again and again, to the living Word — reading it, hearing it, obeying it — we are trained to discern the difference between God’s ways and our own, between the voice of the Shepherd and the voice of the enemy. Our spiritual hearing, which was damaged by sin, is rehabilitated. God repeatedly warns, “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts” (Hebrews 3:7–8, 15; 4:7). Matthew 13:15 explains that hearts can grow calloused so that people hardly hear with their ears and have closed their eyes. The teaching of righteousness, used constantly, softens and sensitizes the heart again.
This “constant use” is what moves us from theory to testimony. Revelation 12:11 says the overcomers defeat the enemy “by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony.” Hebrews gives us the blood side and the word-side. The blood of Jesus opens the way into the Most Holy Place; the Word of God trains us once we are there. We learn to pray, to confess, to praise, to obey, to keep coming back when we fall. Over time, the Word that once felt sharp and painful becomes our delight because it is shaping us into the people we were created to be.
CHAPTER THREE
“My Righteous One” — Living by Faith and Not Shrinking Back
As we submit to this ongoing training, Hebrews gives us a new name and a new identity: “my righteous one.” Hebrews 10:38 declares, “But my righteous one will live by faith. And I take no pleasure in the one who shrinks back.” The righteous one, in God’s eyes, is defined not by perfection of behavior but by a posture of faith that keeps moving toward Him instead of retreating. The warning is serious: God takes no pleasure in those who shrink back. But the encouragement is just as strong: “We do not belong to those who shrink back and are destroyed, but to those who have faith and are saved” (Hebrews 10:39).
Hebrews 11 then unpacks what this looks like. Faith is “confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see” (Hebrews 11:1). The saints of old lived as strangers and exiles, obeying God’s voice, enduring hardship, and looking ahead to a city with foundations whose architect and builder is God (Hebrews 11:10, 13–16). They were not clinging to the country they left; they were longing for a better, heavenly one. Their lives become a gallery of “righteous ones” living by faith. Yet even they did not receive what had been promised, because God had planned something better for us, so that only together with us would they be made perfect (Hebrews 11:39–40).
Our call, then, is to join their company. We fix our thoughts on Jesus (Hebrews 3:1), and as we grow, we fix our eyes on Him — the pioneer and perfecter of faith — who for the joy set before Him endured the cross (Hebrews 12:1–2). To live as “my righteous one” is to run the race He has marked out, to stay in the lane He chose, to keep going when it hurts, and to refuse the temptation to drift, to harden, or to settle for a lesser city. It is to say with our lives, “I am not going back. I trust You. I will follow.”
CHAPTER FOUR
A Harvest of Righteousness — Enduring Discipline
Hebrews does not soften the reality of spiritual growth. The moment we begin fixing our eyes on Jesus, the Father begins shaping us through discipline. Hebrews 12:7–11 tells us plainly to “endure hardship as discipline,” because God is treating us as His children. No discipline is pleasant; it is painful. Yet it produces something nothing else can produce: “a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.” If the teaching of righteousness trains our minds and hearts through the Word, then discipline trains our desires, motives, and reflexes through suffering.
This is the same path Jesus Himself walked. Though He was the Son, He was “made perfect through what he suffered” (Hebrews 2:10; 5:8–9). Suffering did not make Jesus morally better; it brought His obedience to completion, revealing the fullness of His righteousness. In the same way, hardship brings our faith to maturity. James echoes this when he says the testing of our faith produces perseverance, and perseverance must finish its work so that we may be “mature and complete, not lacking anything” (James 1:2–4).
Discipline is the furnace that purifies the heart. It exposes where we still resist God’s voice. It reveals where we still fear, cling, complain, or shrink back. But those who endure find that discipline becomes a doorway. It pushes us deeper into God’s house, deeper into trust, deeper into the Most Holy Place where Christ intercedes for us. There, our tears and prayers rise like incense from the golden altar of the heart, and God uses every sorrow to shape us into people who can rightly carry His presence.
CHAPTER FIVE
The Righteous Made Perfect — Entering the City of God
The journey of Hebrews — from righteous blood, to teaching, to living by faith, to enduring discipline — leads to one breathtaking destination: the spirits of the righteous made perfect (Hebrews 12:22–23). In this final movement, Hebrews lifts our eyes to a greater world: Mount Zion, the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the living God. Here, angels celebrate. Here, the church of the firstborn is gathered. Here, Jesus mediates the new covenant and His sprinkled blood speaks a better word than Abel.
This is not merely the afterlife. Hebrews says, “You have come” (not “you will someday come”). By faith and by hope, our hearts already enter this city. Hope becomes the anchor of the soul that pulls us inside the veil, into the inner sanctuary where Jesus has gone as our forerunner (Hebrews 6:18–20). The tabernacle in the wilderness was only a shadow of this heavenly house: the lampstand, the table, the veil, the ark, the cherubim — all pointing to real heavenly realities where Christ ministers on our behalf.
In that Most Holy Place, our hearts become the golden altar, continually offering a sacrifice of praise — the fruit of lips that confess His name (Hebrews 13:15). Our prayers mix with heavenly incense (Revelation 8:3–4). Our testimony joins the testimony of the saints who overcame “by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony” (Revelation 12:11). The Word of God — the true ark of the covenant — judges and purifies our thoughts (Hebrews 4:12). Here, under the ministry of our indestructible High Priest, our hearts are strengthened by grace (Hebrews 13:9).
The righteous made perfect are not perfect because their earthly performance was flawless. They are perfect because they kept drawing near. They refused to harden their hearts. They refused to drift. They refused to shrink back. They followed the Lamb wherever He went, even when it led outside the camp to bear His reproach (Hebrews 13:12–14). They lived for the city that is to come. And as they held unswervingly to the hope they professed, God completed the work He began in them, shaping them into living stones of His eternal house.
CONCLUSION
By Constant Use — The Journey of Hebrews in One Line
Hebrews tells a single, unified story:
Righteous blood opens the way. The teaching of righteousness trains us by constant use. “My righteous one” lives by faith and refuses to shrink back. Discipline produces a harvest of righteousness. And in the end, God makes His people the righteous made perfect.
Every step depends on hearing God’s voice — “Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts.” Every step requires drawing near through the blood of Jesus with a sincere heart. Every step leads deeper into God’s house and closer to the city whose architect and builder is God.
This is how we overcome. This is how we grow from milk to solid food. This is how we join the saints who triumphed by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony.
By constant use.
By constant hearing.
By constant drawing near.
By constant fixing our eyes on Jesus.
And the God of peace, who brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, will Himself equip us with everything good for doing His will — until we stand with all the saints as the righteous made perfect.