NOTES for Heb 4:12-16
Speaking of God's word, which "pierces to the division of soul and spirit," the author of the letter has in mind, on the one hand, the living revelation that is inseparable from God's presence, and on the other hand, the inner Torah, that inner spiritual and moral imperative and spiritual backbone without which the first generations of Christians could not imagine spiritual life. This living word of God is what judges a person. Speaking of "soul and spirit," the author of the letter has in mind, on the one hand, human nature, which he calls "soul," although the corresponding Greek word in the biblical context can simply mean "life," and on the other hand, that "breath," that "spirit," which God gives each person at creation. Here is the deepest level of the human person, the level connected with the very existence of the human being as the image of God.
At this depth it is decided what a particular person is before God, before other people, and before himself. For a Christian, such judgment takes on an added meaning: here the question is also decided whether he is faithful to Christ, whether the life of the Kingdom is an absolute value for him, or whether there, in the very depths of his soul, he is ready to seek something else, something more important. And there too, at this final depth, the question of faithfulness to Christ as High Priest, with a capital letter, is decided. Indeed, the high priest in the traditional Yahwist understanding is the head of the people-community standing before God.
Every community always consists of persons, each of whom is fully aware of himself and of his relationships both with God and with the other members of his community. Otherwise the community degenerates into a religious collective, where individual people dissolve into a large collective "we" that at times has quite vivid religious experiences, but is spiritually completely barren. And each member of the community comes to God together with all the relationships that bind him to others. The presider of the community and its head stands at the center of this complex system of relationships that the community, going to God, represents.
The question of the presider's full inclusion in the system of relationships within the community is extremely important in the context of the community's spiritual path. In this sense the Savior is the ideal Head and Presider: His bond with everyone who belongs to the Church as His body is absolute. No one, not even the most zealous high priest leading the Temple community and the people of God, can have such a bond with his community. Betraying such a Presider means losing the Kingdom, and therefore salvation.