NOTES for Heb 4:12-16
There is something very important for us in biblical Revelation: God, transcendent and incomprehensible, speaks. He speaks—and the universe takes shape; He speaks—and life appears; He speaks—and the human being is created, the one with whom God will then conduct a dialogue. We see that the word of God is not merely a word, but an action.
Moreover, His word has one quality usually found only in a living interlocutor: every time we turn to it, we hear something new! The word proceeds from the living God and brings life with it.
God overcomes the distance that separates us from Him and addresses us. The apostle reminds us that God's word “works” for us when it penetrates within us, to the very heart—then it cleanses, instructs, and fills us. Can we shut ourselves off from it? Probably. But then, if it is not active within us, neither will the life that God wishes to give us enter into us.