This is another in a series of excerpts from The Book of Life: What the Bible Says about God’s Registry of the Redeemed from High Street Press and available at Amazon. This except comes from Chapter 15: Assembly of the Firstborn: Hebrews 12:23.

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Instead, you have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God (the heavenly Jerusalem), to myriads of angels, a festive gathering, to the assembly of the firstborn whose names have been written in heaven, to a Judge, who is God of all, to the spirits of righteous people made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood, which says better things than the blood of Abel (Heb. 12:22-24).

On February 16, 1832, Joseph Smith, founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, claimed the Lord gave him a series of visions revealing that the “many mansions” to which Jesus refers in John 14:2 – “In my Father’s house are many mansions” (KJV) – are divided into three general categories: the celestial, terrestrial, and telestial kingdoms.

More than a decade later, Smith revealed additional detail: “In the celestial glory there are three heavens or degrees.” In other words, in the celestial, or highest, kingdom, faithful Mormons may aspire to one of three levels of glory. 

From these visions, the LDS Church draws its doctrine of the “Church of the Firstborn.” The highest level of the celestial kingdom is reserved for those who “gain exaltation,” or godhood, by keeping all the commandments of the Lord. As Joseph Fielding Smith, sixth president of the church and nephew of its founder, wrote, “There will be many who are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who shall never become members of the Church of the Firstborn.”

Entrance into this inner circle of Mormon saints is an arduous path of works, but the promised benefits are many. Those who enter the highest level of the celestial kingdom:

become as God, exalted beings who are equal in power, might, and dominion with the Father…. Thus they become gods themselves. Having been made equal with God’s power, dominion, and authority, they do the work of gods: “to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life” of their own offspring.

The LDS Church cites Hebrews 12:23 as one of the “Scriptures” – along with the Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, and Pearl of Great Price – revealing the Church of the Firstborn. And Latter-day Saints today continue to faithfully carry out temple works in the hopes of joining the coterie of gods in the highest level of the celestial kingdom.

Is our future deity what the writer of Hebrews really means? Of course not. The idea of people becoming equal with God is a lie tethered to the serpent’s deception of Eve in the Garden of Eden: “you will be like God” (Gen. 3:5). Even so, Scripture tells us there is an “assembly [or church] of the firstborn whose names have been written in heaven” (Heb. 12:23). And it’s important for true followers of Jesus to understand this wonderful truth. 

So, we begin with a brief overview of the book of Hebrews. Then, we see what the New Testament writers mean when they refer to Jesus as the “firstborn.” This leads us into an exploration of Mount Zion and New Jerusalem. Finally, we identify those who stand with the Lord on Mount Zion.

Three Hebrew audiences

The book of Hebrews proclaims the superiority of Christ. He’s better than everyone and everything: better than angels; better than Moses; better than Joshua; better than Aaron and his priesthood; better than the Old Covenant; and better than any former Hebrew ritual or sacrifice. That’s because Jesus is “the radiance of God’s glory and the exact expression of his nature, sustaining all things by his powerful word” (Heb. 1:3).

John MacArthur notes that the anonymous writer of this epistle addresses three audiences in the Israelite community in the years just before the destruction of the temple in AD 70. First, there are true believers in the Lord Jesus, who suffer persecution at the hands of Jewish unbelievers, like the notorious high priest Ananias, as well as Gentiles who embrace the cult of Caesar. These first-century Christians are in danger of bowing to extreme pressure and returning to the standards and practices of Judaism, or abandoning Christianity altogether. 

The second audience consists of Hebrew non-Christians, who are intellectually convinced of the gospel’s truth but spiritually uncommitted. The writer of Hebrews urges the seekers in this group to step across the threshold of saving faith and fully trust in the Lamb of God.

Hebrew non-Christians who remain unconvinced of the person and work of Christ make up the third audience the writer addresses in this book. He seeks to show them that Jesus is who he claimed to be – the eternal Son of God and the only hope of salvation. If these stiff-necked unbelievers remain entrenched in their rejection of Jesus, “there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a terrifying expectation of judgment and the fury of a fire about to consume the adversaries” (Heb. 10:26-27). 

This same Jesus, who is God incarnate, calls unbelievers to repent and believe. This resurrected and glorified God-Man sits in judgment over all people. And this ascended King of kings now dwells in a new dimension – the heavenlies. As MacArthur puts it: “We read of the heavenly Christ, the heavenly calling, the heavenly gift, the heavenly country, the heavenly Jerusalem, and of our names being written in the heavenlies. Everything is new. Everything is better. We don’t need the old.”

So, when we come to Hebrews 12:22-24, we get a glimpse into a dimension revealed as the heavenlies: Mount Zion, the heavenly Jerusalem, angels, God the Father, Jesus, and “the spirits of righteous people made perfect.” And, of course, we see “the assembly of the firstborn whose names have been written in heaven.” 

This is where the writer of Hebrews beckons us. True believers should hold fast to our faith, knowing that we lose nothing on earth for the sake of Christ that won’t be replaced with something infinitely better. Intellectually convinced but uncommitted searchers should embrace the risen Jesus before it’s too late. And hardened unbelievers should understand that a day of reckoning looms just beyond the horizon. 

For all readers of this book, Jesus is better than everything and everyone. Only he, who is deity in human flesh, fulfills the Old Covenant and offers us a new one. Only he, the Lamb of God, puts an end to the temporary covering of sin secured through the death of spotless animals. Only he, our Passover Lamb, takes away our sin through his sacrificial and substitutionary death on the cross (1 Cor. 5:7). Only he, the Lion of Judah, sits enthroned at the Father’s right hand, awaiting a day when he judges all people, brings heaven to earth, and banishes all opposition. 

Only Jesus is the firstborn.

Next: Jesus as the firstborn