PERSUASION TO STEADFASTNESS
CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL NOTES
It is necessary to the understanding of this chapter that we keep in mind the persecutions and sufferings which were straining the allegiance of the Christian Jews. These were peculiarly distressing at a time when they were also exposed to the solicitations and temptations of the unbelieving Jews.
Hebrews 12:1. Cloud.—Familiar metaphor for a great multitude. Witnesses.—Who in varied spheres illustrate, and testify to, the power of faith to win spiritual triumphs. There is possibly in the mind of the writer, and suggesting his figure, the scene of the Roman or Grecian public games, in which the combatants are watched by multitudes of spectators. Compare 1 Corinthians 4:9. The idea of “witnesses” as those who cheer by their testimony is however to be preferred. Every weight.—R.V. margin, “all cumbrance.” Farrar, “stripping off at once cumbrance of every kind”: the word “weight” was used, technically, in the language of athletes, to mean “superfluous flesh,” to be reduced by training. ὄγκος means “swelling,” “weight,” and then, morally, “pride,” “inflation.” The writer, no doubt, had in mind the special dangers of the Hebrew Christians. The “divers and strange teachings,” spoken of in Hebrews 13:9, in which would be included the Judaising practices which they were tempted to observe, will probably suit the figure best. Which doth so easily beset us.—These words form the translation of a single Greek word, εὐπερίστατον. It is a form of a verb which means to “stand round us”; so the meaning may be “closely clings.” The precise reference of the writer is not to particular and individual sins, but to the sin of apostasy which at that time beset all Christian Jews. Moulton says, “The prevailing opinion amongst modern writers appears to be that the word signifies well (or easily) surrounding; and that the writer is comparing sin with a garment—either a loosely fitting garment by which the runner becomes entangled and is tripped up, or one that clings closely to him and thus impedes his ease of movement.” But Moulton prefers the suggestion of words that are analogous to this one, and that would lead us to render “much admired”; lit. “well surrounded by an admiring crowd.” Anyway, the ordinary associations of the term “besetting sin” are not suitable here. Stuart paraphrases the verse thus: “Since so many illustratious patriarchs, prophets, and martyrs, who preceded us, have exercised faith, persevered in it, and obtained the rewards consequent upon it, let us, in like manner, rejecting every solicitation to renounce our hopes and our holy religion, persevere in the belief, and in the duties, which the gospel requires.”
Hebrews 12:2. Looking.—More precisely “looking off,” “looking away.” It implies “the concentration of the wandering gaze in a single direction.” Author.—ἀρχηγόν: see Hebrews 2:10. Leader, Imitator, Captain, Prince, Bringer-on. He who introduced the new religion. Finisher.—τελειωτήν. The one who has Himself reached the goal for which we are striving. There is a guarantee in His having completed the race (1 Peter 1:9).
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Hebrews 12:1-2
The Inspiration of Noble Examples.—The “cloud of witnesses” is manifestly that list of noble and heroic men and women which has been given in chap. 11, together with that further list which has been suggested by brief allusion. The good men and true who have lived, laboured, and suffered in the past should always appear to us as a “great cloud of witnesses”: in their witnessing is found (in one sense) their immortality. Any goodness gained, any moral triumphs won, never die, in the sense of losing their moral influence on humanity. Every good lifts the race to a higher level.
“Lives of great men all remind us
We may make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time.”
“Those who thus encompass us, a countless host, have had witness borne to them through their faith, and in turn stand forth as witnesses to faith, bearing testimony to its power and works. One and all they offer encouragement to us in our own contest of faith.” The picture which the writer brings before us is that of the great public games of his day. We are those who have to fight the spiritual fight, and to run the Christian race, and we may well be inspired to all holy energy, persistency, and self-restraint, as we note the severe discipline of these competitors, the intensity of their struggle, the delight in their victory, and the glory of their rewards. Some, however, see in the “cloud of witnesses” the vast crowding mass of spectators in the amphitheatre, who watch the combatants and the racers, and inspire them to heroic efforts by their loud acclaim. The previous suggestion may be preferred as more precisely connecting this chapter with the previous one.
I. The cloud of witnesses.—Setting before us the long roll of godly men who have lived through the ages, there are two things we can see in them which may well inspire us.
1. They were men who mastered their circumstances in loyalty to God. But nobody ever yet mastered his circumstances until he had mastered himself. When once that is done, the mastery of circumstances becomes an easy thing. The circumstances of our life never are “according to our mind.” They are largely created by wills which conflict with ours, and by events that are wholly beyond our control. What is inspiring in the Old Testament heroes is this—they did not master their circumstances in any mere forcing of their own will and pleasure, but in loyally furthering the will of God as they knew it. And that is the highest law for the ruling of our lives. Circumstances will eventually master any man whose only idea is to make his will rule them. Circumstances never can eventually master any man whose one idea is, to make God’s will rule them.
2. They were men who fulfilled their life-mission in devotion to God. On an Irish tombstone, erected to the memory of a devoted lady, whose life was a service to the children and the poor, is inscribed these words: “She had a work to do, and she did it.” That might be said of the Old Testament saints. The recognition of a Divine commission ennobles a life. And such recognition should come to us all. If God “calls us by His grace into the fellowship of His Son,” we may be absolutely sure that He calls us by His grace into some special form of work for His Son, and endows us with the gifts for the work, and brings round to us the sphere in which the work can be done. Every man that watches for it in a spirit of willingness will find his work set before him; and he may be inspired, by the old saints, to fulfil it in absolute devotion to God. He will be ennobled by the sense of having a trust. What may be the inspiring power of the Old Testament wrestlers in the fight, and runners in the race, should also be felt as the power of those saintly and heroic souls who have come into our personal knowledge. They are our inspiring “cloud of witnesses.”
II. The one sublime Witness.—“Looking unto Jesus.” The writer seems to have designed to say something more precise than appears in our English translation. He seems to have meant this: “Look at that long roll of noble souls, and see what triumphs they gained through their loyalty and devotion to God; but do not fix all your thought on them. Get all the inspiration that you can from them; and then look off, look away from them—look unto Jesus, who, in mastery of circumstances, in loyalty to God, in fulfilment of His life-mission, and in devotion to God, is altogether and easily their Head, their Captain. Talk about the practical life of faith which the old heroes lived; here is a practical life of faith in every way more perfect, more complete, more nobly toned, more triumphant, more inspiring. Here is the Author, the Head, the First, of men of faith; here is the Finisher: for nobody will ever live a nobler life of faith, a life that shall surpass His.” Fix attention on three things concerning this absolute model of faith:
1. He endured the cross, despising, mastering, rising above, the shame.
2. His faith in the issue of His enduring brought Him present joy. “For the joy that was set before Him.”
3. His persistent and triumphant faith brought round to Him the Divine recognition and reward. “And hath sat down at the right hand of God.” There is this additional inspiration in the example of the Lord Jesus—that we can apprehend the Divine future reward with which His life of faith was sealed. We cannot pass in thought with the heroes of the Old Testament into the life beyond, and so estimate, inspiringly, their final rewards. We can only see how rewards came in their heart-joy in God, and in their good influence in their generation. But the New Testament Scriptures labour to help us in the apprehension of the glory and reward which Christ has won, and they hold out before us the hope of gaining that “crown of life” which our Lord Jesus has. So Jesus, the sublime witness to the practical life of faith, leads on the double train of heroic souls, from the old age and new, who believed God, and in their faith gained the great life-victory.
SUGGESTIVE NOTES AND SERMON SKETCHES
Hebrews 12:1. Besetting Sins.—Precision of thinking may prevent our saying that the writer had in his mind precisely what we mean by “besetting sins,” but to take his words with our own associations will not put us out of harmony with his thought, or with his teaching. If a man speaks harshly concerning the failings and infirmities of other people, we may be quite sure that he either does not know himself, or has a distorted vision which allows him to see only what he wishes to see. By reason of natural or acquired frailties of disposition, character, and habit, every man finds great difficulty in living through the godly life. In the great Christian life-conflict, as in times of national warfare, there are some battles, and much continuous, skirmishing, guerilla work. The battle-times are special temptations and trials. The continuous warfare is represented by the daily dealing with besetting sins.
I. All of us have some evil disposition, tendency, or influence, which may properly be called our “besetting sin.”—Usually, because of its subtle and disguised character, it is difficult for us to find it. Very often we are strangely surprised to find that it is the very thing of which we most readily and most harshly accuse others.
1. Some are directly related to our fallen nature,—as hereditary drunkenness, gluttony, and sensuality; as that love of bloody sports which was so dreadful a feature in Pagan human nature, and which reappears in our day in the strange love of reading about murders, and the fascination of novels containing sensational horrors.
2. Some result from defective moral training, which has failed to deal wisely and effectively with the first signs of evil in child-life,—as vanity, affectation of superiority, idleness, procrastination, cruelty, etc.
3. Some result from the union of fallen nature with outward temptation, e.g. pride, unforgivingness, self-conceit, readiness to take offence. With some knowledge of our real selves, we could not fail to pray, with the psalmist, “Cleanse Thou me from secret faults.”
II. Our besetting sins must exert a most injurious influence on our Christian lives.—A man may be smitten down by a great temptation, and find recovering power, and rise again, shaking off the evil, and becoming henceforth the better for the humbling experience. But the danger of our little falls, through our besetting sins, lies in their so seldom awaking us, and arousing us to exert our recuperative energies. Besetting sins wear away, as the waters wear the stones.
III. Besetting sins demand our watchful attention and our persistent effort.—This we feel increasingly with the growing years. The experience of life gradually persuades us that we cannot hope to entirely uproot them. (The Diabolians will persist in lurking in some little-known corners of Mansoul.) What we can do we must do, and keep on doing—we can watch for and crush their opportunities. This we shall never thoroughly do until we can see our besetment to be sin.
Looking off unto Jesus.—In the old Grecian games it was necessary to keep the eye of the runner fixed on the goal. So we must turn our attention from everything else and fix it on Christ, if we would run well the Christian race.
I. Under what apprehensions of Him are we to look to Christ?—
1. As Saviour. Illustrate by the figures, “Alpha and Omega”; ransom; opened prison; slave given his freedom. The look should be one of gratitude.
2. As Master. Illustrate by figures, captain leading army; king; Joshua seeing “Captain of host”; St. Paul receiving orders from the glorified Jesus. The look should be one of obedience.
3. Example: Jesus is the model of a man dwelt in by the Spirit of God. Imitation needs the presence of a model.
II. In what scenes are we to look to Jesus?—
1. Common duty. Christ’s image can be reflected in a little pool even better than in a great lake.
2. Times of temptation.
3. Times of difficulty. Imagine Moses anxiously looking every morning, the first thing, to see whether the pillar-cloud had moved.
4. Means of grace. What is ever brought to mind by the church steeples pointing upwards.
III. What sort of looks should they be?—
1. Trustful. A man on a height looks up, not down.
2. Obedient. The proper spirit of servants.
3. Loving, as to our mother or our dearest friend. We shall look to Christ the better, the better we come to know Him. Know Him worthily, and we shall look off to Him altogether.
Weights and Sins.—There is a regular series of thoughts in this clause. If we would run well, we must run light; and if we would run light, we must look to Christ. The central injunction is, “Let us run with patience”; the only way of doing that is the “laying aside all weights and sin”; and the only way of laying aside the weights and sins is “looking unto Jesus.” The “sin which doth so easily beset us” is sin generically. All sin is a besetting sin. It is the characteristic of every kind of transgression, that it circles us round about, that it is always lying in wait and lurking for us. Every “weight” is distinct from “sin.” We, as racers, must throw aside the garment that wraps us round—that is to say, “the sin that easily besets us”; and then, besides that, we must lay aside everything else which weights us for the race—that is to say, certain habits or tendencies within us.
I. There are hindrances which are not sins.—Sin is a transgression of God’s law; a “weight” is that which, allowable in itself, is, for some reason, a hindrance and impediment in our running the heavenly race. Sin is sin, whosoever does it; but weights may be weights to me, and not weights to you. What are these weights? We carry them about with us, and we are to put them away from ourselves. They are the feelings and habits of mind by which we abuse God’s great gifts and mercies. We are to put away the dispositions within us which make things temptations. It is an awful and mysterious power that we all possess of perverting the highest endowments, whether of soul or of circumstances, which God has given us, into the occasions for faltering and falling back in the Divine life. Every blessing, every gladness, every possession, external to us, and every faculty and attribute within us, we turn into heavy weights that drag us down to this low spot of earth.
II. If we would run, we must lay these weights aside.—The whole of the Christian’s course is a fight. We carry with us a double nature. Because of that conflict, it follows that, if ever there is to be a positive progress in the Christian race, it must be accompanied and made possible by the negative process of casting away and losing much that interferes with it. There is no spiritual life without dying; there is no spiritual growth without putting off “the old man with his affections and lusts.” How is this laying aside to be performed?
1. By getting so strong that the thing shall not be a weight, though we carry it.
2. By taking the prudent course of putting it utterly aside. There are many duties which, by our own sinfulness, we make weights, and we dare not, and we cannot if we would, lay them aside,—a man’s calling or domestic ties. The duties that in our weakness become impediments and weights we must not leave. There is a large field for misconception and misapplication in the settlement of the practical question, Which of my weights arise from circumstances that I dare not seek to alter, and which of them from circumstances that I dare not leave unaltered? There is a large margin left for the play of honesty of purpose, and plain common sense, in the fitting of general maxims to the shifting and complicated details of an individual life. But no laws can be laid down to save us that trouble.
III. This laying aside of every weight is only possible by looking to Christ.—Some people suppose that when they have laid aside a weight, conquered a hindrance, given up some bad habit, they have done a meritorious thing. We are, no doubt, strengthened by the very act; but then it is of no use at all except in so far as it makes us better fitted for the positive progress which is to come after it. The racer puts aside his garments that he may run. We empty our hearts that Christ may fill them. And Christ must have begun to fill them before we can empty them. “Looking to Jesus” is the only means of thorough-going, absolute self-denial. All other surrender than that which is based upon love to Him, and faith in Him, is but surface work, and drives the subtle disease to the vitals. If you would lay aside every weight, you must look to Christ, and let His love flow into your soul. Then self-denial will not be self-denial. It will be blessing and joy, sweet and easy. Whatever you give up for Christ you get back from Christ, better, more beautiful, more blessed, hallowed to its inmost core, a joy and a possession for ever.—A. Maclaren, D.D.
Cloud of Witnesses.—They are “a cloud” like that background of one of Raffaelle’s great pictures, which, at first sight, seems only a bright mist, and looked at more closely is all full of calm, angel faces.—Ibid.
Hebrews 12:1-2. The Christian Race.—This passage is, in the main, an exhortation to that steadfast pursuit of the Christian ideal to which we are all bound by our upward calling of God in Christ Jesus. Nor is there any doubt that its leading image is that of a race such as the athletes of classical times used to run; possibly the race that was in the writer’s mind was one of those that were run in the vast Roman amphitheatres, in which the spectators sat in seats that rose tier above tier, so that to the runners, swiftly flashing by, their white faces and many-coloured robes would look like an illuminated “cloud” stooping from the sky.
I. How are we to prepare ourselves for the Christian race?—By “laying” or putting “aside”; by stripping off, by getting quit of, “every weight,” or better, “all encumbrance,” all that would hinder or impede us, “and the sin that surrounds us,” or, as the English Version has it, “the sin that doth so easily beset us.” As to the first phrase, we need not limit ourselves to the acts of the athlete, and what they may suggest. “Every weight,” “all encumbrance,” cannot mean less than this—that we are to lay aside whatever impedes us, whatever would hamper or delay us, from whatever cause, in whatever way. The second clause is more difficult. It seems as if “the sin that doth so easily beset us” must be our most besetting sin, the sin to which we are most inclined by our personal make, temperament, habit, and into whose hindering and degrading clutches we are most apt to fall. But the simple fact is, that our eight words, “the sin that doth most easily beset us,” are a translation, or a paraphrase, of only three Greek words, which might be translated by “the circumambient sin.” What the writer meant to convey was, that, in addition to all other encumbrances, all else which is adverse to the Christian life, we must lay aside the ruling sin of the age, the sin which is in the very air of our time, which besets or surrounds us like an atmosphere—the sin which, as everybody shares it, we may half persuade ourselves is not a sin at all, or is not a sin so deadly that it need be very strenuously opposed or renounced. It is a popular sin which the inspired writer had in his eye—probably that “fear of persecution” about which he, again and again, warns his readers. These common and admired sins of the time, sins which we can readily excuse to ourselves, which make men, in some sense, think better of us and associate with us on easier terms, which at all events gain for us a more peaceful and quiet life, are among the most dangerous, because the most subtle and plausible, sins; they are among the most fatal hindrances to our advance in the spiritual life; and the temptations to them offer us our noblest opportunities for serving God and man. And these sins are as active, as potent, as fatal, to-day as they ever where.
II. If we ask, How are we to run this race? the answer is, With “patient endurance,” with cheerful constancy, with a resolute and ever-renewed exertion of our whole strength, with an unflagging and whole-hearted devotion which will shrink from no trial, succumb to no temptation.
III. In running this race, we are encouraged by the example and testimony of a great cloud of witnesses. For the writer of this epistle the cloud was composed of the heroic men and women whose famous achievements he had summarised in the previous chapter, from the father of the faithful downward. But in what sense were they witnesses? Are they the interested and approving spectators of our exploits? Or are they, rather, witnesses and martyrs to the truth, and to the God in whom we believe—witnesses in whose lives we may see our own experiences reflected, and from whose lips we may gather consolation and encouragement? How does their presence help us? By stimulating us to a keener emulation, a braver effort, a stronger determination to win, because they are looking on; or by furnishing us with guidance, counsel, courage, hope, as we remember how much they endured, what perils and defects they surmounted, and how gloriously they conquered at last, and how richly they were rewarded? If we must choose between these interpretations, we choose the latter. But we need not choose; we may accept both motives, in so far as they are good and helpful motives; for all things are ours, all motives, aids, encouragements, to that strenuous and continuous effort by which alone we can rise into the life eternal, and receive its crown. There is no kind of reading by which we profit more than the biographies of men who were genuinely or greatly good. But of all biographies those which are the most helpful to us are those which we find in the Bible, when once we have learned that the men whose lives are recorded there were men of like passions with ourselves, and that their faults and sins are recorded for our warning and instruction, not that we may justify them, or allow ourselves in them; for these biographies were written by men who had a special eye for the trials of faith and the triumphs of righteousness.
IV. If we ask, How may we win? how may we best assure ourselves of winning this race, of ultimately obtaining that perfect ideal of character which has been set before us?—the answer is, By “looking unto Jesus.” In the imperial games the goal was placed in front of the emperor’s seat. And the image of this verse seems to be, that that victorious athlete and champion, Jesus Christ, after having run the race as it had never been run before, and reached the goal in face of such opposition and under the pressure of such a burden as man never before endured, had been called up by the Imperator to sit on His right hand, and to adjudge the prize in all races that should be thereafter run. Because He sits high above the goal, because He is to judge the strife, and His hand is to confer the wreath of victory, we are to look to Him as we run; nay, as the Greek verb implies, looking away from all others, or else, we are to look only to Him. There is to be a deliberate and energetic concentration of our whole power and aspiration on Him. We are to concentrate our thoughts on Christ, because He is “the Author and Perfecter of faith”—not only of our faith, but of faith. To this writer faith is a principle, not a creed—not a system of co-ordinated beliefs, but a condition and adventure of the soul, or a life of which this condition is the animating and inspiring motive. When he speaks of Jesus as “the Author and Perfecter” of this faith, he may mean—
1. That even the great cloud of witnesses, from the father of the faithful down to the last of his children who had “wrought righteousness,” owed their faith to Jesus Christ, the everlasting Word, by whom all things were made and all men redeemed.
2. That in Jesus this Divine principle of life first received its full incarnation, that in Him this ideal was first perfectedly realised.
3. And that, if we are to live a life of faith, He must both originate this life in us and complete it. How confidently we may look to Him for all the grace and help we need, we learn from the next clause of the verse: “who, for the joy set before Him, endured a cross, despising shame.” “The joy of the Saviour was the salvation of mankind” (Theodoret). Even the cruel and shameful burden of “a cross” could not abate His zeal nor rob Him of the prize; nor could the shame of it daunt His courage or turn Him from His aim. And what was His cross but the sense and burden of our sin? What the shame which He despised but our shame in that, seeing the very Ideal of virtue and righteousness, we did not recognise it, did not love and desire it; nay, hated it, and, so far as we could, banished it from the world? He who endured all this for us, and from us, can He withhold His sympathy and aid when, instead of opposing and rejecting Him, we set out on the very course He trod, press forward in it under manifold weaknesses and discouragements, looking steadfastly to Him for guidance, sympathy, and grace?—S. Cox, D.D.
Plodding through the Uneventful.—It is a great deal easier to be up to the occasion in some shining moment of a man’s life, when he knows that a supreme hour has come, than it is to keep that high tone when plodding over all the dreary plateau of uneventful, monotonous travel and dull duties. It is easier to run fast for a minute than to grind along the dusty road for a day. We have all a few moments in life of hard, glorious running; but we have days and years of walking—the uneventful discharge of small duties.—A. Maclaren, D.D.
Hebrews 12:2. The Saviour rejoicing to suffer for Mankind.—The apostle Paul frequently illustrates the position and prospects of Christians by a reference to the social customs existing among the persons to whom his writings were addressed. Here is a reference to “the games.” Spiritually applied, the Christians addressed are regarded as the spectators; the departed saints; and the Lord Jesus, once a successful candidate, and now the Arbiter at the goal, by whom the reward is to be adjudged and bestowed.
I. The humiliation and suffering to which the Lord Jesus Christ submitted.—
1. In their nature. “The cross” signifies death by crucifixion. “The shame,” of being deserted by the Father, being accursed and outcast, of bearing the guilt of millions, and the wrath for those sins.
2. The spirit in which they were encountered and borne. “Endured” with resignation and fortitude; “despised the shame.” He delights in the scorching of the fire, and He scorns the woe.
II. The prospects, by the pleasurable contemplation of which, amidst His humiliation and shame, the Lord Jesus Christ was animated.—
1. The ordained mediatorial results by which the joy of the Lord Jesus was actually inspired. He was to enter through His sufferings into pre-eminent personal elevation and glory. By His humiliation and sufferings He vindicated the government and character of the Godhead, and secured the redemption and happiness for unnumbered multitudes of mankind.
2. The inherent characteristics by which the joy of the Lord Jesus, so inspired, was distinguished.
(1) The purity of His joy. Absolutely unsullied.
(2) The vastness. Its extent cannot be measured or fathomed. His joy, like His love, passeth knowledge.
(3) The perpetuity. Never fade.
(4) The diffusiveness. The fulness of His joy sends forth streams to the angels and the spirits of the just made perfect.
III. The influence which the pleasure of the Lord Jesus, so excited and constituted, ought to have upon His people.—
1. They ought to rejoice with Him in His joy. We ought to congratulate our Lord Jesus on the pleasure arising from His mediatorial work. Exult with Him, and for His sake.
2. They ought to accord to Him the entire surrender and devotedness of their hearts. If the majesty and splendour of His celestial glory are now continually employed for our welfare, is there not a solemn and resistless call upon our unreserved practical dedication to His will?
3. They should bear their own afflictions and sorrows in imitation of His example. Mental resignation and fortitude, and in holy contempt of what He had to suffer—thus He endured; and here is our obligation too.
4. They should habitually anticipate the period when they shall meet their Redeemer in the world of joy where now He dwells. The eye of faith can detect Him standing by the goal, holding out not the crown of fading laurel, but the incorruptible crown of life. Endeavour to participate in the spirit of this high and noble feeling.—J. Parsons.
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 12
Hebrews 12:1. Laying Aside our Weights.—It was on the confines of the desert, amid sterile and almost inaccessible rocks, that Ben Achmet, the Dervise, led a life of austerity and devotion. A cave in the rocks was his dwelling. Roots and fruits, the scanty product of the inhospitable region he inhabited, satisfied his hunger, and the fountain that bubbled up from the lower part of a neighbouring cliff slaked his thirst. He had formerly been a priest in a magnificent mosque, and scrupulously conducted the ceremonies of the Mohammedan faith; but disgusted with the hypocrisy and injustice of those around him, he abandoned the mosque and his authority as a priest, betaking himself to the desert, to spend his days as an anchorite, in sanctity, self-denial, and devotion. Years rolled over the head of Ben Achmet, and the fame of his sanctity spread abroad. In seasons of drought he supplied the traveller of the desert with water from his little well. In times of pestilence he left his solitary abode to attend the sick and comfort the dying in the villages that were scattered around, and often did he stanch the blood of the wounded Arab, and heal him of his wounds. His fame was spread abroad; his name inspired veneration; and the plundering Bedouin gave up his booty at the command of Ben Achmet, the Dervise. Akaba was an Arabian robber; he had a band of lawless men under his command ready to do his bidding, large numbers of slaves, and a treasure house well stored with his ill-gotten wealth. The sanctity of Ben Achmet arrested his attention; his conscience smote him on account of his guilt, and he longed to be as famed for his devotion as he had been for his crimes. He sought the abode of the Dervise, and told him his desires. “Ben Achmet,” said he, “I have five hundred cimeters ready to obey me, numbers of slaves at my command, and a goodly treasure-house filled with riches; tell me how to add to these the hope of a happy immortality?” Ben Achmet led him to a neighbouring cliff that was steep, rugged, and high; and pointing to three large stones that lay near together, he told him to lift them from the ground, and to follow him up the cliff. Akaba, laden with the stones, could scarcely move; to ascend the cliff with them was impossible. “I cannot follow thee, Ben Achmet,” said he, “with these burdens.” “Then cast down one of them,” replied the Dervise, “and hasten after me.” Akaba dropped a stone, but still found himself too heavily encumbered to proceed. “I tell thee it is impossible,” cried the robber chieftain; “thou thyself couldst not proceed a step with such a load.” “Let go another stone, then,” said Ben Achmet. Akaba readily dropped another stone, and, with great difficulty, clambered the cliff for a while, till, exhausted with the effort, he again cried out that he could come no farther. Ben Achmet directed him to drop the last stone; and, no sooner had he done this, than he mounted with ease, and soon stood with his conductor on the summit of the cliff. “Son,” said Ben Achmet, “thou hast three burdens which hinder thee in thy way to a better world. Disband thy troop of lawless plunderers, set thy captive slaves at liberty, and restore thy ill-gotten wealth to its owners; it is easier for Akaba to ascend this cliff with the stones that lie at its foot, than for him to journey onward to a better world with power, pleasure, and riches in his possession.”
The Ancient Grecian Games.—The great religious festivals of Judaism served to unite the nation, and to meet the longing for pleasurable excitement which we find in a greater or less degree in every nation. They help us also to realise the serious and religious character of the Jewish people. They had no public games; and only in the late degenerate days of Roman dominion were gymnasia and theatres established among them. The apostle Paul tarried some time in the city of Corinth, and founded there a large, prosperous, and influential Christian Church; while residing in that city, there can be no doubt the great games were held on the adjoining isthmus, which were known as the Isthmian Games, and celebrated every other year. We cannot imagine that Paul went to them, for they must have been scenes of wild rioting and vice, too much like those witnessed now on our race-courses; but he would know all about them; and they would be for a time quite the common excitement in Corinth. Certainly, in Paul’s later writings, we find many allusions to these games; they seem to have seized on his imagination, and set him thinking how much there was like them in a Christian course. That also seemed to him a race, and he longed “so to run that he might attain.” That also seemed to him a battle; and when he came to its close, he could say, “I have fought a good fight.” The principal passages in which figures taken from the scenes of these games are found, are: 1 Corinthians 4:9; 1 Corinthians 9:24-27; Philippians 3:13-14; 1 Thessalonians 2:19-20; 1 Timothy 4:8; 1 Timothy 6:12; 2 Timothy 2:5; 2 Timothy 4:7-8; Hebrews 10:32-33; Hebrews 12:1; Hebrews 2:1. The company of spectators was exceedingly large, people attending from all the district round; the competitors were urged and excited by their shouts and praises. In the Roman amphitheatres the audiences decided whether a defeated gladiator was to die by turning down their thumbs.
2. The competitors underwent previous and careful training, for at least ten months; keeping under the body, bringing it into subjection, and cultivating skill in the use of weapons, or the art of running.
3. Very stringent laws were fixed for conducting the contests, and they must be carried on in the prescribed way. A man would not be crowned unless he strove lawfully.
4. The contests were divided into two classes,—the pancratium, consisting of boxing and wrestling; and the pentathlon, consisting of leaping, running, quoiting, and hurling. In some games poetical and oratorical contests were introduced.
5. The actual reward was only a crown of pine or ivy leaves; but the victor was set in high honour, his name, and that of his father and country, were proclaimed by a herald to the vast assembly; and he was borne to his native city in triumph. Sometimes a pillar was erected on which the record of his victory was placed. From the rewards given at these games, the figures of Revelation 3:12, etc., are taken.
Hebrews 12:2. Looking unto Jesus.—That conveys the idea of rigid shutting out of other things in order that one supreme light may fill the eye and gladden the soul. If you do not carefully drop black curtains round the little chamber, and exclude all side lights as well as all other objects from the field of vision, there will be no clear impression of the beloved face made upon the sensitive plate. It must be in the darkness that the image is transferred to the heart.—A. Maclaren, D.D.
Captain and Perfecter of Faith.—In some notes on New Testament passages, Principal David Brown, in the Expositor, gives a new turn of thought to the familiar phrase, “the Author and Finisher [Perfecter, R.V.] of our faith.” He rejects the word “our,” and would translate, “the Captain and Perfecter of ‘faith.’ ” The passage, he maintains, teaches, not that Jesus is the Author and Completer of “our own” faith, but of the “life of faith.” In other words, He is the model believer. It is claimed that the very next verse brings out this idea. The “joy” was conditioned on the triumph of faith in enduring suffering. So the entire course of Christ’s temptation is a test and victory of faith. At the cross one said, “He trusted in God that He would deliver Him,” etc. Thus Christ is the “Leader and Conductor” of the army of believers, for He is Himself the most shining example of faith. This is a fresh light upon an old text.
Joy of Christ in Redemption.—It was a sad and fearful sight which that noble-minded girl, Grace Darling, and her old father saw, when the grey light began to make things visible across that stormy sea. The wild, broken clouds, the rear-guard of the tempest, were moving slowly and as it were grudgingly away; the fierce winds were sweeping in gusts across the sky; and the waves, lashed into foam by the midnight storm that had been raging, were breaking in sheets of spray over the miserable remnant of the crew who still clung to the wreck. As each breaker poured its torrent over it, the girl and her father could see the numbers thinned, and one after another swept away, to struggle for a few moments in the boiling and whirling eddies, and then “sink like lead in the mighty waters.” Will a boat live in such a sea? Can it be managed? They at all events will try. Their little boat is skilfully pushed off from the lighthouse, and, forced forward by the strength of love, it is soon under the wreck, and filled with those who have lowered themselves into it. A little while and the deeply laden boat has reached the lighthouse and deposited its rescued passengers in safety. Another effort and another, and they are all safe. Oh, how did their generous hearts glow with joy when they looked around on those who, but for their courage and skill and self-devotion, had been lifeless corpses in the ocean I How did their hearts burn within them as they saw the shivering sailors cowering over the fire and thawing their almost frozen limbs! What will be His joy who saw from His throne in the heavens a shipwrecked world with its millions who, but for Him, must have perished, who left His glory and with a strong hand spoiled the raging powers of darkness of their prey, and gathered from the wreck the mighty remnant!—Canon Champneys.