Hebrews 12:1-4
NO TURNING BACK
Look at this text for just a few minutes and let us learn a few things about the Christian race. There are at least three things I want us to focus our attention on in this message. I want us to consider, Running With Durability, Running Without Distractions, and Running With Determination.
Believers find encouragement in being surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses as the saints mentioned in
The race is that path God has marked out for us. We cannot select our own program. We must faithfully follow the route God himself has marked.
Listeners are taken from Israel’s past to the world of the stadium and athletic competition, where they find themselves running in a footrace. The stadion, or running track, was about two hundred yards long and thirty yards wide. First-century stadiums commonly had no seats; people simply sat or stood on the earthen embankment that flanked the track. The size of a cloud of witnesses (12:1a) at an athletic contest would vary: Delphi could accommodate about seven thousand people while as many as forty thousand may have come to Olympia. Crowds were not passive bystanders, for the roar of their voices energized participants, while the desire to do well in the eyes of others gave athletes incentive to run well (Seneca, Ep. 34.2; 109.6). The witnesses surrounding the listeners include the heroes and heroines of faith from
But what are we compassed about with? The writer of this Epistle does not say that we are compassed about with a great cloud—mark the word ‘cloud’—of spectators, observers; no, he says witnesses. And the word ‘witness’ means not a spectator, an observer, but one who testifies, a martyr. We might render it ‘We are compassed about with so great a cloud of martyrs.’
When we see the word therefore in the Bible, we ask, “What is it there for?” It means that based on so great a cloud of witnesses (the great giants of faith listed in Hebrews eleven), this is how we should respond (12:1).
The metaphoric scene is a huge coliseum. The contestants are the writer and us. The event is a distance footrace. It must be run with endurance, or “patience” because the Christian life is not a hundred-yard dash; it is a relay in which each person’s leg of the race lasts a lifetime. Saints who ran before us (many of whom are listed in chapter eleven) have passed the baton of faith to us and are now cheering for us as we carry it on to the next generation.
Remember. To complete the race, remember the cloud of witnesses that fills the stadium (12:1a). They are cheering us on and encouraging us to heed what exhortation in
Those Old Testament personalities listed in Hebrews eleven were presented to the readers of this letter to encourage them in the midst of difficult times. The Hebrew writer had already told his readers of the value of trusting God. The Hebrew writer said, “… Do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward” (
But if you will carefully note the verses of our text, the Old Testament personalities of Hebrews eleven do not exhaust God’s efforts to encourage these Hebrew Christians. The Hebrew writer used Jesus as the greatest example for encouragement in running the Christian race. In spite of the sufferings and sacrifices of all of those mentioned in Hebrews eleven, none had suffered to the point to which Jesus had suffered.
“Cloud” (nephos) was a common Greco-Roman metaphor for crowds (BAGD, 537). The term “witnesses” (martyroi) combines several meanings like tones in a musical chord:
(a) Spectators. The faithful of the past watch the contest in which the listeners now compete. In one sense witnesses are “spectators” (Lucian, Anacharsis 11; Plutarch, Mor. 527F; 679B; Dio Chrysostom, Disc. 3.11; Longinus, On the Sublime 14.2;
(b) Witnesses. In court “witnesses” testify to the truth (
Hebrews says that listeners are surrounded by spectators, which implies that the race is being run within the stadium. Standard races were two, seven, twelve, and twenty stades. The longest was twenty-four stades, or a little under three miles. The marathon was not a standard race in antiquity, but “endurance” was required even for the shorter races, in which runners became exhausted
References to “enduring” (
can be endured for “the joy that is set before” them (
2. We are to lay aside every weight.
The laying aside of every weight is only possible by looking to Christ. We empty our hearts; but the empty heart is dull and cold and dark; we empty our hearts that Christ may fill them. Just as the old leaves drop naturally from the tree when the new buds of spring begin to put themselves out, so the new affections come and dwell in the heart, and expel the old.
LAY ASIDE EVERY WEIGHT
Pray that the Holy Spirit would help you to place your worries and pain on Christ’s shoulders.
Read
laying aside every weight and the sin. This metaphor draws on different senses of onkos (“weight,” “heaviness”):
(a) Physical weight. Athletes would seek to lay aside or eliminate the excess body weight that made them unfit for running (Philostratus, Gymnasticus 48; Appian, Roman History 4.7; Philo, Special Laws 2.91). In a physical sense the verb “lay aside” was used for removing clothing (
(b) Pride or pretension. Some associated “weight” with the “swollen” sense of self with which some people cloaked themselves (Plutarch, Marcius Coriolanus 13.4; Philo, Preliminary Studies 128; cf. Creation 1–2; TLNT 2.561–63). In a metaphorical sense “lay aside” could mean renouncing drunkenness, licentiousness, quarreling, and other sins (
The text suggests that the witnesses encircle the listeners to encourage, but sin encircles to entangle them (Westcott) like a bulky robe impedes running
Listeners are to look to Jesus, “the pioneer and completer of faith” (12:2a). In an ordinary stadium an honored guest would sit on a platform at the edge of the track, about midway along its course. According to Virgil one of the pioneers of Rome, Aeneas, sat on such a platform (Aeneid 5.290), but in Hebrews Jesus the pioneer of faith has the place of honor. Jesus did not simply run a course that others had laid out, but was the “forerunner” who opened a new way into God’s presence through his death and exaltation (6:20; 10:19–20). By taking faith to its goal, Jesus exemplifies the faithfulness that others are called to follow, while the message about his suffering and exaltation evoke in people the faith that discipleship demands.
Refocus. In a race, as in most sports, where you look is extremely important. Looking down at your feet or at the runners behind you will throw you off stride and slow you down. That’s why it is critically important to look to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith (12:2a–b). As we refocus on Jesus, what three truths about Him should we consider (12:2c–e)?
Then comes the last beautiful expression of the text, ‘the Author and Finisher of our faith.’—Now, is not that a complete text? See how complete it is, coming after chapter 11. The Lord Jesus is the author of faith, and the end of faith, too. If we have faith in Jesus, He put it there. He is the Author of it. It is His faith in us. He is the Author of your faith, and He is the Finisher of your faith. He Who has begun the good work in you will continue it unto the day of His coming.
Having presented a catalog of Old Testament witnesses to the efficacy of faith, the writer now speaks of Messiah, the Jehoshua of the Old Testament, the Jesus of the New, God Himself incarnate in human flesh. He uses Him as the supreme example to which his readers should look as they run life’s race.
The word “looking” is aphorao (ἀφοραο) “to turn the eyes away from other things and fix them on something.” The word also means “to turn one’s mind to a certain thing.” Both meanings are applicable here, the spiritual vision turned away from all else and together with the mind, concentrated on Jesus. What a lesson in Christian running technique we have in that little preposition “off, away from,” which is prefixed to this verb. The minute the Greek runner in the stadium takes his attention away from the race course and the goal to which he is speeding, and turns it upon the onlooking crowds, his speed is slackened. It is so with the Christian. The minute he takes his eyes off of the Lord Jesus, and turns them upon others, his pace in the Christian life is slackened, and his onward progress in grace hindered. Messiah is called the author of our faith. The word “author” is the translation of archegon (ἀρχεγον). Vincent says that the Authorized Version is misleading and narrows the scope of the passage. The word is made up of ago (ἀγο) “to lead,” and arche (ἀρχε), “the first.” The compound word means “the chief leader, one that takes the lead in anything and thus furnishes the example.” In our passage it describes Jesus as the One “who in the pre-eminence of His faith far surpasses the examples of faith commemorated in chapter 11” (Vincent). The word “faith” has the article before it in the Greek text. It is the faith of which the writer is speaking as exhibited in the examples of chapter eleven and in the Lord Jesus. It is not the Christian Faith as such, but faith absolutely. Christ is the archegon (ἀρχεγον), the chief leader of this faith in that He “furnished the perfect development, the supreme example of faith, and in virtue of this He is the leader of the whole believing host of all time.” He is also the finisher of the faith spoken of in these chapters. The word is teleioo (τελειοο) which means “to carry through completely, to finish, to make perfect or complete.” Our Lord in His life of faith on earth, became the perfect or complete example of the life of faith. Thayer speaks of our Lord as “one who has in his own person raised faith to its perfection and so set before us the highest example of faith.”
author—“Prince-leader.” The same Greek is translated, “Captain (of salvation),”
Jesus is an important person if we are to successfully run the Christian race because he is the author and finisher or perfecter of faith. The word “author” (archegos) suggests one who takes the lead. The word “author” also suggests the source from which a thing proceeds. The word “finisher” or “perfecter” (teleiotes) suggests the accomplishment of the intended purpose in view. If we are to run the Christian race, it must begin, proceed and finish in Jesus.
Faith involves trust in God and faithfulness to God (see pp. 125–27). Jesus pioneers and completes faith in two ways:
(a) Source of faith. Jesus inaugurates a new covenant and opens a “new and living way” into the presence of God (10:19–20). Through his death and exaltation, he became a “source of eternal salvation” (5:9). He is a source of faith because the message about him evokes faith.
(b) Model of faith. Jesus pioneers and completes faith by fully trusting God and remaining faithful to God in a way that the listeners are to follow. Cf. 6:20 on the forerunner.
who for the joy that was set before him. There are two translations of anti, of which the first is preferable:
These Hebrew Christians needed to reevaluate their view of their sufferings. They needed to know that since others were blessed by their lives and since God’s will was accomplished through their lives, their sufferings should be accepted joy.
Jesus did not like the shame that accompanied his sufferings, but the shame did not outweigh the joy; and because he counted the joys of his sufferings, he accomplished his Father’s will and he is now seated at the right hand of the throne of God. The right hand is the place of greatness and honor.
The scourge commonly consisted of multiple lashes fastened into a wooden handle. Metal shards, lead balls, and bone fragments were inserted into the lashes. The victim was stripped, tied to a pillar, and lashed, sometimes until the inner organs or the backbone were exposed (J.W. 2.612; 6.304;
The word “set” is the translation of prokeimenes (προκειμενες) literally “lying before.” Vincent says, “The joy was the full, divine beatitude of His preincarnate life in the bosom of the Father; the glory which He had with God before the world was. In exchange for this He accepted the Cross and the shame. The contrast is designed between the readers (v. 1), and the joy which was already present to Christ. The heroic character of His faith appears in His renouncing a joy already in possession in exchange for shame and death. The passage thus falls in with
So here, “the joy set before him” is not something for himself alone, but something to be shared with those for whom he died as sacrifice and lives as high priest. The throne of God, to which he has been exalted, is the place to which he has gone as his people’s forerunner.47 That is the goal of the pathway of faith; the Pioneer has reached it first, but others who triumph in the same contest will share it with him. Our author would have found himself in perfect sympathy with the terms of the promise given to the Laodicean church in
The Hebrew writer said that Jesus became the author and perfecter of faith by enduring the cross and now sitting at the right hand of God. The writer even said that what Jesus suffered was a joy. I am sure the suffering of Jesus on the cross was a joy because his sufferings brought many sons to glory (
JOY IN GRIEF
‘Who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame.’
How, then, could Jesus so bear all that was involved with ‘the cross’ and ‘the shame’? We are told here that it was ‘for the joy that was set before him’. So what was this ‘joy’, and how was it ‘set before him’? It was far more than just being ‘the other side’ of the Calvary experience, in the sense of getting it all over with, getting through it. It gathers up several things. Surely it was, at least, ‘the joy’ of doing the Father’s will (10:7), and of accomplishing all the work that the Father gave him to do (
In saying that Jesus endured a cross (12:2b) the author could assume that listeners were familiar with crucifixion, which meant “wasting away in pain, dying limb by limb” and “letting out his life drop by drop.” The victim was “fastened to the accursed tree, long sickly, already deformed, swelling with ugly weals on shoulders and chest, and drawing the breath of life amid long-drawn-out agony” (Seneca, Ep. 101.14). To say that Jesus “endured” the cross suggests not only that he experienced it, but that he bore it faithfully rather than allowing the ordeal to turn him away from obedience (NOTE on 10:32).
Jesus also went beyond endurance by disdaining the shame that Greeks, Romans, and Jews associated with crucifixion (NOTE on 12:2d). The threat of shame creates pressure to avoid actions that a group deems unworthy, so that if Jesus had acted on the basis of what society deemed shameful, he would have sought to avoid crucifixion. On the other hand, to despise shame is to reject the views of those people who have declared that the cross is dishonorable. Hebrews argues that Jesus suffered in obedience to God (2:10–18; 5:7–10; 10:5–10), following a standard different from that of Greco-Roman society. By despising shame, Jesus teaches us “to count as nothing the opinion of human beings” (Chrysostom, Homilies 28.4; deSilva, Despising, 173).
Rather than abandoning obedience to God in order to avoid shame in the eyes of society, Jesus persevered for the sake of the joy that was set before him by God, namely, a place at the right hand of God (
No; he “bore the cross, despising the disgrace.” To die by crucifixion was to plumb the lowest depths of disgrace; it was a punishment reserved for those who were deemed most unfit to live, a punishment for those who were subhuman. From so degrading a death Roman citizens were exempt by ancient statute; the dignity of the Roman name would be besmirched by being brought into association with anything as vile as the cross. For slaves, and criminals of low degree, it was regarded as a suitable means of execution, and a grim deterrent to others. But this disgrace Jesus disregarded, as something not worthy to be taken into account when it was a question of his obedience to the will of God. So he brought faith to perfection by his endurance of the cross—and now the place of highest exaltation is his. The pioneer of salvation has been made perfect through sufferings, and has therefore taken his seat “at the right hand of the throne of God.”44 His exaltation there, with all that it means for his people’s well-being and for the triumph of God’s purpose in the universe, is “the joy set before him,” for the sake of which he submitted to shame and death.
This is ‘the joy that was set before him’—‘set before him’ in that he was assured of it, it was the promise of the Father to him, it was the prospect always in view for him, he kept his eyes firmly upon it, and was continually stirred up to press on to the possession of it. And where is he now? He ‘is seated at the right hand of the throne of God’. And he awaits us there, in the place of honour and of victory, so that when we each arrive in heaven at the end of the race he may welcome us home and say to us (though none of us deserve it), ‘Well done, good and faithful servant … Enter into the joy of your master’ (
‘Consider him [literally, ‘the one’, but clearly referring to Jesus] who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted’ (12:3). It is all too easy to ‘grow weary or fainthearted’ in the course of running the Christian race, and only maintaining this firm gaze upon Jesus can keep us going. This is not the first time that we have been exhorted to ‘Consider him’. In 3:1 the call was to ‘consider Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession’, although a different verb was used there for ‘consider’.
There are so many obstacles, hindrances and discouragements which we can face as Christians, and these can have the effect of sapping our strength, reducing our determination and clouding our joy. Yet none of these can match the obstacles, hindrances and discouragements which faced the Lord Jesus throughout the course of his earthly life and ministry. They were intense on all sides. The way this is expressed in our verse is that he ‘endured from sinners such hostility against himself’. Day after day he faced ‘hostility against himself’, whether verbally from those who disputed his claims or rejected his teaching (like the scribes, Pharisees and Sadducees), or physically from those who sought to kill him. It came ‘from sinners’, those who had no desire to believe upon him or ‘take up (their) cross and follow (him)’ (
When we’re frustrated with life, we often end up angry with God. We cry out, “Where are you? Why did you do this?” We become hostile toward God because we believe that His inability to act is the reason for our problems. Being angry is easier than dealing with the real issues: It’s usually a case of simple cause and effect, or our own actions, which landed us in the tight spot.
The intent of this verse, however, is to give added thrust to what was written in the previous verse—namely, that the sufferings, hardships and endurance of Jesus were of a different order altogether from anything that (thus far, at least) had come the way of the Hebrews. The entire purpose of his coming into the world was not to resist ‘to the point of shedding (his) blood’ but to shed it upon the cross, for it is (he himself says) ‘the new covenant in my blood’ (
The Hebrews had endured a great deal, as we learned in 10:32–34, though there is no mention there of them having had to shed their blood. That is, they had not thus far been required to die for their faith in Jesus Christ. Some in the panoramic sweep of chapter 11 had done so (11:37), some in the days of the early church were required to do so (Stephen in
Three features about Jesus demand attention. First, Jesus endured the cross to seize the blessed joy set before him. The path to victorious joy led through the cross. Second, Jesus scorned the shame of the cross. Jesus recognized the humiliation and ignominy of the cross, but these threats were of no consequence to him as he considered the coming glory. Third, Jesus sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. From the pain and agony of the cross God exalted Jesus to the position of a throne.
12:3. As we reflect on our own hardships, we need to assess carefully the endurance of Jesus. Jesus endured hostility from sinners that reached its climax at the cross. When you tend to let go, you can avoid faintheartedness and weariness by keeping your attention riveted upon Jesus. Jesus endured hostility from stubborn sinners. You have never faced such intense evil as did Jesus. His sterling example can stabilize us in our fear and concern.
