May the Spirit of God graciously instruct us while we read this chapter!
You know that, in the eleventh chapter, the apostle has pictured the ancient worshipers and their victories. Imagine that you see them mounting in their chariots of fire up to their seats in heaven; behold them going from the mouths of lions, from the deserts, and mountains, and dens and caves of the earth, up to their glorious thrones on high where they recline in ease and honour.
The apostle then introduces us to a race-course, in which he represents all these conquerors as sitting upon seats all round the course, watching those who are about to run; and thus he begins:-Verse
Hebrews 12:1-2. Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith;
It was no excitement to run if there were no onlookers. The spur to the racers and wrestlers in the Grecian games was found in the eyes of those who gazed, in the clapping of their hands, in the shouting of their applause, as well as in the prizes that awaited the winners. Behold, my brethren, even our most private acts are looked upon by the millions of eyes of the great cloud of witnesses. Angels tell the news of how we run the great race, and they rejoice when we prosper. Let us «run well» because so many are looking on at us, and just as the Grecian runner stripped himself of his clothes before he started, so « let us lay aside every weight,» the weight of sin, the weight of care, the weight of grief, the weight of worldliness, and everything else that might hinder us. Above all, let us beware of that sin which, like a trailing garment, might entangle our feet, and trip us up, for, if we fall, our opponent will certainly win the prize. Look well to that sin to which you are the most liable. We all have some besetting sin; let us especially be on the watch against that. While we keep all the wall with diligence, let us set a double guard at the most vulnerable point. «And let us run with patience» or «endurance.» There is to be a combination of the active and passive in the Christian; he must be able to endure and yet be able still to work. « Let us run with patience, « run when we are out of breath, run when our bones ache, run when the prize seems to be further off than ever, and to be hidden from our eyes, run when the hot sun makes us athirst,-still « let us run with patience the race that is set before us,» for it is he that endureth unto the end who shall be saved;- not merely the starter in the race, for there are many who begin, and who begin not in the power of the Spirit of God, and who therefore do not persevere unto the end. By this sign shall the true children of God be known, that they run with endurance unto the end, « looking unto Jesus.» As the wife of the Persian nobleman said, when her husband asked her what she thought of Darius, that she had not looked at him, she had no eyes for any man but her husband, so the Christian has no eyes for any but Christ, -- «looking unto Jesus,»--keeping his eye always upon him, and so running the Christian race. Jesus is here delightfully called « the author and finisher of our faith.» In most of the arts, there is a division of labour, one man begins, and another completes; there is scarcely anything that is completed by one man; but the stupendous work of our salvation was not only commenced but it was also completed by the Lord Jesus Christ alone. Let us look unto him then. This will help us to persevere unto the end because he persevered to the end.
Hebrews 12:2. Who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.
It was this joy that made Christ strong to endure in the day of his sorrow and joy must make you also strong to endure unto the end. He had the joy of anticipated victory. It «was set before him,» and so he «endured the cross, despising the shame.» He ran with a heavy cross on his back, and yet he ran faster than you or I have run: he ran because he had more joy than we have. So, my brethren, let us live in the joy of heaven, let us live in the joy of ultimate victory, and this will enable us to bear all the toils and trials of our present life.
Hebrews 12:3. For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds.
Luther says, «When I think of what Christ suffered, I am ashamed to call anything that I have endured, suffering for his sake.» He carried his heavy cross, but we only carry a sliver or two of it; he drank his cup to the dreg, and we do but sip a drop or two at the very most. «Consider him.» Consider how he suffered far more than you can ever suffer, and how he is now crowned with glory and honour; and so you are to be like him, descend like him into the depths of agony, that with him you may rise to the heights of glory.
Hebrews 12:4-7. Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin. And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him: for whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not?
Here is a little variation in the subject. First we had the trials which come from the world, these we are to endure looking to Christ for grace to enable us to overcome them. Now we have the trials which come from God, and here nature becomes an assistant to grace. We are reminded that children have to be chastened, and therefore, if we are the children of God we must expect to be chastened by him. Note in the fifth verse, the two evils of which we are in danger,-either of deepening God's chastenings or else of fainting under them; either of thinking too little or too much of them. HAPPY is the Christian who ever takes the middle course, and never despises the chastenings of the Lord, nor ever faints under them. Note, in the sixth verse, that we are to expect sharp blows from God's chastening hand. That word «encourageth» is a wrong word: «Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.» The scourge was ever a most severe form of punishment. God will not spare his children when they need to be chastened; they shall have some blows as hard as he can well lay them on, that is to say, as hard as such a loving heart as his will permit him to give. They shall have such blows that each one of them shall have to cry out, «I am broken in sunder, my heart is smitten and withered like grass.» And this is to be the treatment for every son whom God receives; not for some of them, but for all. «He scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.»
Hebrews 12:8. But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons.
He does not say, «then are ye alone.» He is speaking about those who profess to be the children of God, writing concerning those who claim to be members of the Lord's family, and he stigmatizes with one of the most dreadful of names those who may escape without chastisement; but, brethren who among us would have the pleasure of carnal ease if with it we are to have the shame of spiritual illegitimacy?
Hebrews 12:9-10. Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live? For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure;
There was, possibly, much of their own temper mixed with their chastisements, they let off their wrath upon us sometimes by the medium of chastisement, but God never chastens his children merely out of anger.
Hebrews 12:10-12. But he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness. Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby. Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees;
Let not your service to God slacken. Lift up to God that which was idly hanging down through despondency. Let not your prayers grow weak through grief, but strengthen the feeble knees.
Hebrews 12:13-15. And make straight paths for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way; but let it rather be healed. Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord: looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled;
For, alas! under the means of grace, there are many who do «fail of the grace of God.» They get something that they think is like grace, but it is not the true grace of God, and they ultimately fall from it, and perish. What we need is to have unfailing grace, and power so to hold on that, at the last, we may inherit the crown of life, but for this we must look diligently, for the best of us has shrewd cause to suspect himself, and in church-fellowship, we ought to be very watchful lest the church as a whole should fail through lack of the true grace of God, and especially lest any root of bitterness springing up among us should trouble us, and thereby many be defiled.
Hebrews 12:16. Lest there be any fornicator, or profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright.
Those who seek the pleasures of the flesh rather than the pleasures of a higher world are here put side by side with Esau. Now Esau sold the right to his future heritage for a present mess of pottage, and many there are who do something very like that,-sell their souls for a little Sunday-trading, or for a little carnal company, a little of that fool's mirth which is like the crackling of thorns under a pot. They are willing to damn themselves to all eternity because they cannot bear the jeers and sneers of a ribald world. O brethren, let us not be like them or like Esau!
Hebrews 12:17. For ye know how that afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected: for he found no place of repentance, though he sought at carefully with tears.
He never repented of his sin, but only of the consequences of it. He never sought pardon of God, but only sought to inherit the blessing. And there will be many, who have lived for this world, and loved it, who, when they wake up in another world, will begin to seek the blessing, but they will be rejected. This may happen even in this world. If they only seek to die the death of the righteous, and seek not the pardon of their sin, they shall hear the Lord say to them, «Because I have called, and ye refused; I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded: but ye have set at nought all my counsel, and would none of my reproof, I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh.»