Hebrews Lesson 199 May 27, 2010
NKJ Acts 4:12 "Nor is there salvation in any other, for there
is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved."
If you’ll open your Bibles to
Hebrews 12, we will begin to go through this passage. Now last time I pointed
out that as I started studying this last week that there were some things about
this passage that began to sort of impress itself on me in a new way. I think
when we read many passages in Scripture (especially those verses that are very
familiar and verses perhaps we memorized at times and passages that give us
encouragement, give us hope), we often take them at sort of a face value from
the English. While we can learn many things and many accurate things when we
study the Scripture in English, the Bible was not originally written in
English. It was originally written in Hebrew in the Old Testament and Greek in
the New Testament. Often when we read anything in translation something somehow
gets lost. There is always something that doesn’t quite come across; and there
are fine points, nuances of grammar and word meanings (word plays, puns,
sarcasm, humor) that often get lost in a translation. That is why it’s always
important to study things in the original language. The more a pastor studies
in the original language, the more we study the language the more we learn. It
helps us to understand the various things that are going on.
Now as we were entering into this
last time I pointed out that this marks the conclusion to a rather long section
that began in chapter 11. Chapter 11 begins the fifth section in the book of
Hebrews and begins to lay out some basic teaching in chapter 11 related to
faith. What the writer of Hebrews is talking about is faith has to do with a
belief that something is true. Now you can’t package that. You can’t
necessarily see it, measure it. You can’t quantify faith. I can’t look at you
and see whether you are believing something or not. Belief itself works itself
out though in certain actions. The faith or the beliefs that we have then
relate to two things as he says in verse 1 of chapter 11:
NKJ Hebrews 11:1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things
not seen.
When we look at what a person is
believing and how that affects the way they live, then even though as he’s
going to argue in that whole chapter of chapter 11, that even though the
promise of God was not realized by those Old Testament saints, their belief in
the promise of God as being true was never shaken. As a result of that, even
though they died before they saw it fulfilled doesn’t mean it won’t be
fulfilled and it is evidence of – their lives are evidence of the reality
of what they believed.
Now we went through all of chapter
11 and now we come to this conclusion. The conclusion begins:
NKJ Hebrews 12:1 Therefore we also,
Now the writer having gone through
all of these illustrations is now going to apply that to the way we think.
The first thing that he says is
that:
since we are
surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses,
Now the imagery here is the imagery
of being in a stadium. He’s giving the reason for the challenge, the reason for
the basic exhortation that he’s going to make at the end of verse 1, which is
to “let us run the race that is set before us with endurance.” He says that
part of the incentive and part of the encouragement that we have, is that we
are surrounded by this cloud of witnesses – not that they are watching
us. This isn’t a verse that says that people in heaven are watching us. But it
is talking about - and he used the word “witnesses” several times in the
previous chapter especially at the end in verse 39.
KJ Hebrews 11:39 And all these, having obtained a good testimony
Or witness.
through faith, did not receive the promise,
It is their lives (and the knowledge
of their lives and their witness) that is what is an incentive to us. It is an
example for us to strengthen us so that when we face difficult times and want
to give up the Christian life and drop out that we don’t do that – that
we hang in there and run the race with endurance. We are encouraged by this
great cloud of witnesses. The idea that he uses here is (this cloud of
witnesses) is a term that is related to the games.
Here I have a picture from Delphi in
Greece, which is where they had one of the Olympic Games. This is a training
area where the athletes would train. Now the interesting thing about the
ancient Greek games is they trained and did all of their exercising and all of
the competition was completely naked. They stripped off all their clothes and
did everything in the nude.
So we actually have a verb that has
to do with discipline in the Greek (gumnazo), which basically has that connotation
of stripping everything off so you’re not hindered. Today we have high tech
clothes and all kinds of gear that athletes wear in order to minimize any kind
of extra friction with the air – anything that causes them to slow down
that will reduce their time, things like that. In the ancient world the only
thing they knew they could do was just take everything off so that they would
not be hindered by clothes or by tunics or something that would get in the way.
This was the training area at Delphi
where the athletes would train and everyday they went through extremely
rigorous procedures. If they failed, then that was it. They would not get an
opportunity to compete in the games.
Now this is the racetrack, the
stadium there at Delphi. You see you have the stands all on the right. This is
what the picture is that somehow the writer of Hebrews is using this as an
image that all of those who have gone before us are the ones who are in the
stands. We are able to perform in the field of competition because of all that
we have learned from those who have gone before us that have surmounted the
same challenges, obstacles, difficulties that we face. Because of what they
have done, that is a source of strength and encouragement to us that none of us
go through life without facing the same basic kinds of problems and
difficulties that others have faced before us. We all have to run the race, and
we are all eventually judged.
This is the bema. The bema is a Greek word. Actually it also
comes over from a Hebrew word; and it’s the judgment seat. So this is the bema. You can
see this area of the stands is very different from the other benches in the
stands. This is where the judges would sit to judge the contest.
This is a little different shot.
This is from the games at Isthmia. These are the starting blocks, starting
block area that they set up at Isthmia, and these are the starting-blocks that
are still there at Delphi.
So the imagery here for the
incentive for the believer is that there have been hundreds and hundreds of
believers before us who have trusted in the promise of God. They didn’t see the
fulfillment in their lives but that doesn’t mean it won’t be fulfilled. It will
be fulfilled yet in the future. As they hung in there and were not defeated by
the opposition or by challenges or by difficulties, we can too. They are
therefore an encouragement unto us.
Now when we get into the next part
of this verse, this is where we’re going to get into some things that are a
little bit technical because we have to bring in some Greek grammar because
Greek grammar and English grammar are basically not the same. And even though
it may translate over in a similar way, the nuances in an English construction
are not the same as in a Greek construction. So you can read this in the
English and you’re going to think it says something that it’s not saying. So let’s just run that up here.
First of all the command is given
with reference to the challenge. The main challenge comes at the end in the
English
let us run with endurance
Now you’re probably scratching your
head saying, “Wait a minute. Earlier in the middle of the verse it says, ‘Let
us lay aside every weight.’” In English the “let us lay aside” and the “let us
run” are both expressed in an English first person hortatory command. The
trouble is you only have one hortatory command in the Greek; you don’t have
two. The first word is a participle, and so you shouldn’t translate it the same
way. We are to run a race. We’ll come back to the grammar in a minute. We’re
running a race.
The word for race here is not the
one that we might expect; rather it’s the word agon, which indicates a struggle, a
contest. Sometimes it’s used for a race, but it indicates that there’s going to
be some challenges, some difficulties to surmount, and we’re going to need to
make sure that we are focused on the task at hand.
Now the third thing that we see in
the verse is how we are able to run the race. So the command is “let us run.”
As I pointed out last time, in grammar that’s called a hortatory subjunctive
because we don’t have a first person imperative. In the Greek they didn’t have
a first person imperative either so they used a subjunctive to communicate that
idea.
I illustrated that last time when I
played that little clip from Churchill’s speech where he concluded the speech
by saying, “Let us go forward together with our united strength.” Now that was
a command to the English people. That wasn’t a suggestion that maybe we will
and maybe we won’t.
That first person construction “let
us” softens it a little bit but nevertheless it’s still a strong command. So we
have this structure here: “let us aside every burden and run.” Some
translations repeat the “let us” in both places but it indicates in English
that there are two different commands. One is you have to lay aside whatever
the hindrance is. You have to lay aside the weight. You have to lay aside the
encumbrance. You have to lay aside the burden, whatever it is. You have that
lay that aside.
The second thing you have to do is
you have to run. However, if you think that those are two commands then you
would be definitely wrong. What we have to do is look at the grammar here. This
is really a very interesting piece of grammar because it impacts and it’s very
similar to other verses that are very important and shed light on what’s going
on in this particular command.
The verb here for lay aside is the
Greek verb apotithemi.
This is an aorist participle and when – it’s important to note the
grammar because a participle really doesn’t carry time on its own way. The time
comes from the main verb. When you have an aorist participle, the action of the
aorist participle precedes the action of the main verb. When it’s a present
tense it’s at the same time as the action of the main verb, and if it’s a
future tense participle then the action of the participle comes after the
action of the main verb. So by the fact that this is an aorist participle what
does that tell you? That you have to perform the action of this participle
before you perform the action in the main verb.
The main verb is trecho, which
is a present tense verb meaning is basically just a simple verb to run. But the
important thing is the grammar. So just on this part of the grammar alone it
shows that you have to lay aside before you run. Now when you think about it
that makes perfect sense in light of how athletes perform. They would take off
all of their clothes before they would walk out and get into the starting
blocks. They don’t get out into the starting blocks and start running the race
and then say, “Wait a minute! I’ve got too many clothes on,” and then start
pulling their tunic off and pulling off other parts of their clothing and then
somehow get down to the bear necessities half way around the track the first
time. They would completely disrobe and take off everything that might hinder
them or slow them down before they would even begin the race. That is clear
from the grammar here. There’s also another aspect of this that’s important, so
make sure you get the point. In Greek grammar the action of the aorist
participle, which is to lay aside, precedes the action of the verb to run.
Also, this kind of construction,
which is called a participle of attended circumstance, is used when the
participle is setting up the necessary condition that must be met before the
command can be enacted. The way most of us read this is we look at this and
read the command “to lay aside every weight and the sin that so easily ensnares
us”, we immediately interpret that as we have to stop committing certain sins,
and we have to start cleaning up our life in the process of running with
endurance. That’s how we read that on the surface.
The reason I’m breaking this down grammatically
is because if you look at the illustration from racing that doesn’t work at
all. That’s where grace and the joy of the Christian life really come into
play. As I pointed out last time, if you take it that way then what you are
saying is just a pure works salvation like almost every religious system in the
world except for Christianity. Christianity says there is no way you can take
all the sin off, all the encumbrances off. There is no way you can eradicate sin in your life –
which is what causes the hindrance between us and God, there is no way you can
do that. It is impossible. That is why a substitute was necessary. That is why
God had to send Jesus Christ to die on the cross that He paid the penalty of
sin so that the burden for sin falls on Him not on us. We simply accept or
believe in His death on the cross for our salvation. That is the starting
point.
But this isn’t written as a gospel
tract to unbelievers. This is written to those who are already saved. They are
already believers. But after salvation we still sin. We still have the sin
nature. We still continue to, sin and we will always continue to sin. There
will never be a time when we reach moral perfection. So how do we deal with it? So if we read this at first
glance like most people want to take it, then that would indicate that we have
to eradicate sin in our life completely before we can start running the race.
That is how the grammar sets it up. But there’s no way you or I can ever do
that. That is impossible.
What is the application here? Well,
let’s look at two other verses in the New Testament that are structured the
same way, and we’re going to learn that this is expressing a basic principle
that we have taught and taught and taught again and again until you are probably
sick of it.
James 1:21 – so if you want to
turn there it’s just about 4 pages to your right from Hebrews 12. James 1 is
another important verse, and the context of James 1 is very similar to the
context of Hebrews 12. Hebrews 12:2 is going to say that we need to look unto
Jesus.
NKJ Hebrews 12:2 looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set
before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the
right hand of the throne of God.
…two key ideas, joy and endurance. Then
later on when we get down into verse 3 we read:
NKJ Hebrews 12:3 For consider Him who endured such hostility from sinners against
Himself, lest you become weary and discouraged in your souls.
Those are major themes in the epistle
of James. James starts off in James 1:2 saying:
NKJ James 1:2 My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials,
The focus here is on the real joy
and happiness that you have in the Christian life. And this is one of the
things that should distinguish Christians from non-Christians, but the trouble
is a lot of Christians don’t know how to really implement this in their
thinking. So they end up hitting difficulties and trials and challenges in life,
and they throw the same pity party that unbelievers do. They don’t really
understand how this is supposed to transform the way they think.
So in verse 2 we have the theme of
joy. Then in verse 3 we read:
NAS James 1:3 knowing that athe testing of your bfaith produces 1cendurance.
And it is the same word there. The
King James, New King James translates it patience but it is the word hupomone that
we have in Hebrews 12. So we have joy. We have endurance there. Then as you
read through James, and you come to James 5, he comes back to this theme. You
have the same idea – don’t grow weary. We see that the same ideas are
covered here.
Now when we look at James 1:21,
James says (and he’s talking to believers). All through James he’s addressing
brethren, my brethren, my beloved brethren. It’s very clear that James is
addressing those who have already trusted in Jesus as their Savior. He is not
talking to them about how to be saved. He is talking to them about now that
you’re saved this is how you have to live your life. This is how you can go forward
in the spiritual life.
NKJ James 1:21 Therefore lay aside all filthiness and overflow of
wickedness,
If I were giving you a quiz I would
say, “Write down the command in that verse.” And you would all write down “lay aside”;
and you would be wrong because in the English that looks like a command; but in
the Greek that’s the same kind of construction we had in Hebrews 12. It’s a
participle.
NKJ James 1:21 Therefore lay aside all filthiness and overflow of
wickedness,
…which is somewhat better than the
old King James – "superfluity of naughtiness".
It really means the excess that sin
is in a Christian’s life.
NKJ James 1:21 Therefore lay aside all filthiness and overflow of
wickedness, and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save
your souls.
So we have two statements here, two
key words: “lay aside” which is the participle and “receive” which is the
command. So I colored those a little differently so you could see them –
the yellow for “lay aside” and the “receive” for the command. What do you
notice about that word, "lay aside"? It is the same word that we have
over in Hebrews 12:1 – apotithemi, the exact same word. This word means to remove
something. For example it was the word you would use if you were going to take
your clothes off. It is removing something. So we are to remove sin, just like
we take off a shirt and take off our pants to get in the shower – just to
strip down. But you and I can’t do that. So what is this talking about? It’s
impossible for this to mean that you have to remove all sin from your life
unless you have a really superficial shallow view of sin.
Now some people do. I’ve had
conversations with people who said, “You know, I haven’t sinned in about ten
years.”
I heard a conversation with a guy
who made that statement. All of a sudden he had problems with his computer one
day and he got real mad at his computer. Somebody said, “Well wait a minute.
I’m just sorry you did that. You just broke your ten-year record.”
The guy said, “Well, that wasn’t a
sin.”
He has redefined sin as committing
murder or adultery or theft or something like that – one of the big sins.
But anger or losing your temper or jealousy or bitterness or resentment, any
those things; those aren’t sins - arrogance especially! What James is saying
the same thing that the writer of Hebrews is saying is that before you can
receive with meekness or with humility the implanted Word, you have to first of
all take off the sin. So if this means you have to become sinless before you
can take in the Word, then you know we can’t do that. That’s impossible, so it
has to refer to something else.
A couple of other things about this
passage. You have the same passage, the same structure. You have an aorist
participle that precedes the action of the imperative. The aorist imperative
emphasizes immediacy. It emphasizes the priority of the command to receive with
meekness the implanted Word, which is able to save your souls.
Now a lot of people will look at that
last phrase and say, “Oh see, he’s talking about salvation here.”
But that’s only because in English
and evangelicalism English, in English we have taken the word “saved” to be the
umbrella term that refers to what Paul called justification. But the word sozo, which
is the Greek word, is a basic word that means to deliver. Sometimes it means to
heal. Sometimes it’s used in the Scriptures to refer as a synonym for
justification. Sometimes it's used as a synonym for the spiritual life. Sometimes it’s used for eventual
salvation when we are absent from this body and face-to-face with the Lord. The
way James uses the word is to refer to the spiritual life from the time that a
person first trusts Jesus as Savior and is justified until the time that they are
absent from the body and face to face with the Lord.
Remember this is James 1:21. Just
four verses earlier he says:
NKJ James 1:18 Of His own will He brought us forth by the word of truth,
That’s regeneration there.
that we might be
a kind of firstfruits of His creatures.
NKJ James 1:18 Of His own will He brought us forth by the word of truth, that we might
be a kind of firstfruits of His creatures.
So 1:18 is a reference to their
regeneration or justification; 1:21 is talking about now that you have a new
life, how are you going to save that life? Often the word that is translated
soul there (pseuche)
is an idiom for life. So James 1:21 should be translated that we have to
receive the Word because the Word becomes the source of truth and power in
growing.
This is the same thing Jesus said in
His high priestly prayer in John 17 when he was praying to the Father. He said:
NKJ John 17:17 "Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth.
It is the Word of God that is the
element that God uses to transform us and to teach us so that we can live in
such a way that we’re going to honor and glorify Him and that rather than
living self destructive lives we will live happy and productive lives, and it's
going to be grounded in the truth of His Word.
So what is James 1 saying? James 1
is saying that the key to the Christian life is learning and applying the Word
of God. Now before you can learn the Word of God effectively, you have to lay
aside the sin that’s there. But that can’t mean to stop sinning because
otherwise none of us would ever get anywhere because none of us stop
sinning.
Now Peter uses the same kind of
construction over in another well known passage in 1 Peter 2:1-2.
NKJ 1 Peter 2:1 Therefore,
Now here the English writer
(translator) in 1 Peter translates the participle more like a participle
instead of a command. He translates it with the “ing”.
laying aside
all malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and all evil speaking,
NKJ 1 Peter 2:2 as newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow
thereby,
Now in the first verse we have the
word “laying aside.” Guess what word that is. Think we’ve seen it before? Same
word! Apotithemi means that something
we have to remove something. Here it is malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy, evil
speaking.
Then the command is in the second
verse; and that's the word desire. It’s the aorist imperative of epipatheo
meaning to greatly desire. If some of you have been mothers, you know what it's
like when you have a hungry baby. That baby let’s you know how it is demanding
that you feed it. It starts crying and screaming and yelling. Some of you get
that way when you get hungry - even now.
I don’t know if any of you have ever
done this, but going on the long fast really has interesting effects on your
appetite. I remember years ago now when I graduated from seminary, one of our
requirements was we had to take somewhere along the line an extra Christian
education elective. I really didn't like most of the electives that they were
offering at Dallas, and it was getting close to the end.
“How am I going to squeeze this in?
I don't have time in my last semester to take this course. What can I do?”
Then I remembered that there was of
course that Wheaton College up in Chicago offered. They had a large camping
program in their Christian Ministries Department. They have a huge camping
operation up at their main camp up at Honey Rock up in Wisconsin. It was a
wilderness leadership seminar. It was like an outward-bound program. You got to
go backpacking and canoeing out in the boonies and fishing and whatever for two
weeks.
I thought, “Boy, that's a lot better
than sitting in a seminary classroom again for another two weeks or a semester.”
So I found out that if I took it I
could get the credit transferred back and it would count. So I got to get my
last two hours of seminary credit by backpacking and canoeing across the Upper
Peninsula of Michigan. They have mosquitoes there that are state birds. These
things are huge.
Well, we spent two and a half weeks
out; and the last thing that they had the students do is we would come to the
shore of Lake Superior. Lake Superior has a mean temperature of 32 ½ degrees so
it is just barely above freezing. That's why it doesn't grow any kind of
bacteria or anything like that so you can drink the water right out of the
lake. So the last three days of
the trip we were on a solo. They would string us out along the beach, and
everybody set up their tents. We would get about a hundred yards apart so
nobody could see anybody or talk to anybody else. Everybody had a great deal of
privacy. We were told to make sure we didn't take – don’t try to sneak
any food. Don’t take a protein bar in your pack. The whole idea is to go for
three and a half days with no food. If you have food (you try to sneak it)
you've got a big deterrent because there are bears in the woods. The bears will
smell whatever you have, and you don't want a wake up at two o'clock in the
morning with a bear sticking his nose in your tent and all you have to fight
him off with is a tin cup that you’re using for drinking water. So most people
followed that wise advice and left all of their food back at the base camp. So
all our packs with food in it got attacked by the bears back at the base camp!
I was 28 years old at the time and thin and ate everything that came in front
of me – eat the horse, hooves, hide and all. To go 3 ½ days without food
I thought was an impossibility. But the interesting thing was that toward the
evening of the second night, I wasn’t hungry any more. Your appetite begins to
diminish. By the third day your appetite is gone.
That is why when you read the
Scriptures about Jesus and others going forty days without food; you can do
that. Your appetite will go away sometime during the second day. About the 38th
or 39th day (because now it starts to become a little critical for
your health), your appetite will come back with a vengeance. But in between you
won't have an appetite. You need to drink a lot of water, which we did. But
there was no hunger.
I think this is what happens with a
lot of Christians. They are spiritual babies and they don't ever get fed.
Nobody ever teaches them the Word. So they're starving to death, but their
appetite goes away after a while because there's no one out there to give them
anything that’s really nourishing. They just don't have much of an appetite.
But then somebody comes along and starts feeding them something. Then they
start to get hungry because they want to learn the Word. Unfortunately there
aren’t a lot of people out there who are trying to really substantively teach
the Word.
Now that's what happens also when
you go on a fast. I remember when
I came off that fast I had four breakfasts the first morning and none of them
were small. I think I had three lunches and then by the time I got back home I
think I went out to eat for dinner at 4 o'clock, 7 o’clock and 9 o'clock. You
just can't get enough.
The command here in verse 2 is that
we are to have a strong desire for the milk of the Word. The focus there is on
milk; not in contrast to meat, but on nourishment, because it is the Word of
God that nourishes us spiritually and enables us to grow spiritually. But
there's a precondition and that precondition is to lay aside all malice,
deceit, hypocrisy, envy and evil speaking.
How does that actually happen? Well,
I hope I have made it clear by now that we can't think of that as we have to
stop committing any and all sins because we can't do that. I'm not saying we
have to have a licentious or antinomian view of morality where we can just you
know go on and sin and do whatever we want to and not pay attention to a solid
system of morals or ethics. But that's not what the writer of Hebrews was
getting at here. Again and again you have this. The way that we'll lay aside
the sin that’s in our life is through confession. We recognize the sin in our
life. We go to the Lord. We confess our sin just as David does in Psalm 51.
Paul talks about in 1 Corinthians 11 when we come to the Lord’s Table that were
to examine ourselves to make sure that we are ready and prepared to go the
Lord’s Table.
1 John obviously talks about it.
NKJ 1 John 1:9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and
to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
We lay aside the sin that has
gathered up. When we confess that sin and it is removed, we are washed clean. It’s
depicted in the Old Testament in the life of the priest. We've gone over this
before. This is the same thing Jesus is talking about in John 13 when he was
preparing the disciples prior to observing the last supper, the Passover.
He washed their feet.
Remember Peter said, “No, no Lord.
You're not going to wash my feet.”
And the Lord said, “Peter if you
don't let Me wash your feet, you’ll have no part with Me.”
So Peter then said, “No, wash my
whole body.”
Jesus responded and said, “No you
have all been washed,” indicating a full washing, with the Greek word luo. “Except
one of you, but I need to wash your feet.”
The word for washing the feet is a
different word, nipto
meaning to just wash a part of the body. Now that was depicted in the Old
Testament when the high priest was inaugurated into the priesthood. He was bathed from head to foot. We
studied that. I think it was Tuesday night or no, it was Sunday morning in 2
Kings with the reforms that Hezekiah brought to the Temple. They have to
rededicate the Temple, rededicate the priesthood. The high priest was washed
from head to toe. But that only occurred once. That is comparable to when a
person trusts Christ as their Savior. They are completely forgiven positionally
of sin. But we still commit sin. So that has to be dealt with. The same thing
with the priest. He is washed but he’s still going to do things that get his
hands dirty and his feet dirty. So then whenever he would come into the
Tabernacle or the Temple the first thing he would do is wash his hands at the
laver and wash his feet at the laver. That is a picture and the words that are
used in the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Old Testament) draw out
this contrast using those same two words Jesus used in John 13 - drawing out
that distinction between the full positional cleansing and forgiveness that
occurs at salvation and then the wonderful fact that we actually are forgiven
of sins which brings us great joy knowing that the sin doesn't have to entangle
us which is the problem here in Hebrews 12.
The high priest would go through
that same thing. So you have these images in the Old Testament, these same
lessons are taught by Jesus to His disciples the night before He went to the
cross, and then you have numerous passages that reinforce this as we go into
and through the New Testament.
Now Hebrews 12 states – we’ll
read it again.
NKJ Hebrews 12:1 Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of
witnesses, …let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,
In other words don't quit just
because there's opposition and this was something that was going on in the
community that he's writing to is that they are facing tremendous opposition
because as Jewish priests who have trusted in Jesus as the Messiah they're
coming under a lot of rejection and hostility and they're wanting to just give up
and go back into Judaism. But what the writer of Hebrews is saying is you have
to run that race that is endurance focused on the ultimate prize, and don't be
distracted by the things that are weighing you down. You have to deal with the
sin that’s in your life. You have to lay that aside. The way you lay it aside
is through confession.
Now does that mean that you confess
it and just keep on doing it? No! I’m not saying that. But we’re still going to
commit sin. The fact that we will is not an excuse; is not designed to excuse
it. Confession frees us to recover from failure. It's not an excuse to dwell in
failure.
Okay, verse 2. We get the next example of how we do
this. Remember we're still talking about how does he say we are to run. First
of all we run it by laying aside every weight and the sin that easily encumbers
us. I like the way the NET translates that. It translates it:
The sins
It's not like that you're most
likely to commit which is how most people understand that. These are the sins that
cling to you almost inseparably. That is the idea there because we have sin
we're never going to get rid of. We’re never going to stop certain things in
life because that's just the trend of your sin nature. That doesn't mean you’re
not going to fight it. That doesn’t mean you’re not going to give it up. It
means that you don't have to always feel defeated by it, and you can have real
joy because you have real forgiveness in Christ so you can whenever you fail:
“Great! I'm forgiven. Let's move on.”
Then you focus on something else.
The focus comes in verse 2.
NKJ Hebrews 12:2 looking unto Jesus,
Looking unto Jesus is again another
participle. And it's a participle of means indicating that we run with
endurance by looking unto Jesus. He is the example and so by looking at Him,
and it’s not just a verb. The verb here isn't just talking about looking at Him
with your eyes. It's a verb that indicates mental focus and understanding that
we are focused on who Jesus is. We understand who He is. We understand the
dynamics of His life, and then we are focusing on that.
The Greek word is aphorao,
which means to look at, to think about, to meditate on. It has a range of
meanings. The literal meaning is to look at, but it’s used metaphorically in
terms of the object of our concentration. So we are to concentrate on Jesus who
was then said to be:
the author and
finisher of our
faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising
the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
The words that are used here and I
think I have a slide here with these two words for you. The first word that’s
used here for author is archegos, and it is used to mean prince. It is used to mean
leader. It is used to mean ruler,
but it has a very important usage. Just hold your place and turn back to
Hebrews 2:10 – Hebrews 2:10. Let's let the author define the use of the
word within his own context.
NKJ Hebrews 2:10 For it was fitting for Him,
Him here is referring to the
Father.
for whom are all
things and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory,
That is, those who are brought to
salvation, who are brought to heaven.
to make the
captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings.
That’s that word archegos
– captain of their salvation. He is the leader. It has the idea of one
who is the first in a series. He is the one who is laying down a pattern. Some
people translate this “He is the pioneer.” He is the pioneer of their
salvation. Again the writer of Hebrews doesn't use it as a synonym for
justification but for the spiritual life. The parallel here has to do with
growing to spiritual maturity, not with justification – being justified
before God.
in bringing many sons to glory, to make the captain of
their salvation
That is their spiritual life.
perfect through
sufferings.
Again it's the same root we find in
Hebrews 12:2, and that is from the root teleios meaning complete. He's going to make
the pioneer of their salvation complete through suffering. So in Hebrews 12:2
we are to focus on Jesus the pioneer and the finisher. That’s the word there.
The word is teleiotes.
It has the idea of someone who brings something to completion, brings something
to the finish line. He is the one who sums up our faith. So we focus on Jesus
the pioneer and the finisher of our faith the one who is brought to completion
our faith.
KJ Hebrews 12:2 looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set
before Him
When we think about what Jesus
Christ went through on the cross and all the suffering that He went through
before the cross (the beatings, the reviling, the physical abuse, the emotional
abuse, verbal abuse), all of that that's going on. He is being ridiculed by the
soldiers and beaten unmercifully by the soldiers and whipped by the soldiers.
He endures all of that because there's something beyond the cross. There is
something He's enduring the cross for, and that is the ultimate joy beyond that
which involves both what He would accomplish in bringing salvation to the world
and that He would be then promoted to heaven where He would ascend and sit at
the right hand of the Father.
So we look unto Jesus the author and
finisher of our faith who for the joy (or because of the joy) that was set
before Him endured the cross, which is the most shameful death He could have
gone through in the culture of that time. The worst form of death (the most
shameful form of death) in Jewish culture was crucifixion.
endured the
cross, despising the shame,
Now that is a fascinating word there
that we have in the English. To despise means to have contempt for. The word
was used in Old English as a preposition to express the idea of “in spite of
something.” We get this from the Old English of the King James.
who for the joy
that was set before Him
We can say, despite the shame. The
shame and the embarrassment wasn't a factor. He was more focused on the mission
than the embarrassment of the cross.
and has sat
down at the right hand of the throne of God.
So here we have the connection of
these two ideas joy and endurance, the same thing we have in James 1.
NKJ James 1:2 My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials,
3 Knowing this,
that the trying of your faith worketh patience.
4 But let patience have her perfect
work,
So let’s plug this in to understand
what the writer of Hebrews is saying for us.
NKJ Hebrews 12:1 Therefore we also,
In light of the fact that there are
all of these other believers that we have in history that have set a standard
for us and in light of their consistency, let us lay aside all of the baggage, all
of the sin that wipes out our spiritual life (the only way we can do that is
through the confession of sin), and run with endurance the race set before
us.
The race set before us has to do
with living out the spiritual life in obedience to God. We do that by having
our focus on Jesus who had to go through a degree of suffering and opposition
and hostility far beyond anything we can imagine. Now that may not be our
circumstance. We may not be facing a lot of opposition. We may not be facing
hostility and rejection from people; but that's what the original audience of
the book of Hebrews was facing. They were facing rejection, hostility and the
tremendous opposition from friends and family because they were being viewed as
traitors to Judaism because they were trusting in Jesus as their Messiah.
The writer of Hebrews says, “Look at
Jesus. We do not suffer. We do not have the rejection. We do not face the
hostility that He faced. When you look at everything He endured leading up to
the cross and then on the cross when the sin of the world is poured out on
Him…”
Up until that point He had not said
one word, not one thing had come from His mouth. Isaiah 53 predicted that the
Messiah would be like the lamb before the shearers would be dumb – would
not speak, would be mute. This was Jesus until He was on the cross and when the
Father imputed the sin of the world to Him and the perfect impeccable sinless
Jesus Christ received that imputation of sin that is when He cried out.
NKJ Mark 15:34 …"My God, My God, why have You forsaken
Me?"
The forsaken wasn’t that He is rejected by God but that He is
judicially separated because at that point as Paul put it:
NKJ 2 Corinthians 5:21 For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become
the righteousness of God in Him.
So we can face whatever trials
whatever obstacles, whatever opposition we face, and we can have joy in the
midst of it, and not running around like some martyr – how horrible life
is, how terrible the kids are or whoever it is that's giving us grief, how
terrible it is to live in this economy or whatever. We focus. We can have joy
because we understand God is in control.
Now that becomes the basic focus of
the next verse – just preview of coming attractions in verse 3.
NKJ Hebrews 12:3 For consider
Then again we have this word that
indicates mental focus.
Him
That’s the Lord Jesus Christ
who endured
such hostility from sinners against Himself, lest you become weary and
discouraged in your souls.
NKJ Hebrews 12:4 You have not yet resisted to bloodshed, striving against sin.
You haven't faced near the
opposition yet, therefore how can you give up when you haven’t resisted to near
the degree of opposition and difficulty that He faced.
Then we'll get to verse 5. The focus
on the next section deals with endurance and deals with moving forward despite
the obstacles.
We’ll come back next time and
advance forward in Hebrews 12 and we’ll get a little further down maybe even
down to the middle of the chapter as we continue our progression. Let’s close
in prayer.