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In the immediately preceding context of these words, the apostle had said:
`They which run in a race run ALL, but ONE receiveth the prize. So run, that ye may obtain' (1 Cor. 9:24),
and Hebrews 12 picks up the thread and continues:
`Let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus the Author and the Finisher of faith; 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' (Heb. 12:1,2).
The exhortation of Hebrews is `Let us go on unto perfection' (Heb. 6:1), and this is implied in the words of
Hebrews 3:14 (cf. Heb. 3:6):
`If we hold the BEGINNING of our confidence stedfast unto the END'.
Going on unto perfection implies reaching a goal, going on to the end, finishing the course, touching the tape.
Perfection and its associate words are all derivations of the root tel which gives us telos `the end'. This will be made
more evident when the exhortation to go on unto perfection is before us, but it should ever be kept in mind. Unless
we clearly distinguish between Hope which is ours by gift in grace, and which can neither be won nor lost, and Prize
and Crown which is associated with running a race, pressing on, enduring to the end, a prize that even Paul himself
when writing to the Philippians was not sure of attaining, we shall make sad havoc of the teaching of Hebrews.
Throughout the epistle, those addressed are already looked upon as `holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly
calling'. The wilderness experiences of Israel were the experiences of the REDEEMED. Those who forfeited
entrance into the land included Moses himself, and surely Moses was a saved man!
In Hebrews 5:8-12 and 6:1, the apostle writes:
`Though He were a Son, yet learned He obedience by the things which He suffered; and having been perfected, He
became unto all that obey Him the author of aionian salvation; named of God a high priest after the order of
Melchisedec, of whom we have many things to say, and hard of interpretation, seeing ye are become dull of
hearing; for when by reason of the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need again that some one teach you
what are the elements of the beginning of the oracles of God... Wherefore leaving the word of the beginning of
Christ, let us go on unto perfection' (not AV JP).
There we have a parallel with the `forgetting' and the `stretching out to' of Philippians 3.
The historical illustration supplied by Hebrews is found in chapters 3 and 4. The failure of Israel in the
wilderness is largely connected with their fickleness of memory. While it could have been written of them after the
mighty redemption from Egypt, `they soon forgat His works', we find that they `remembered the fish which they did
eat in Egypt freely; the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlick' (Num. 11:5), and
accordingly, after the spies had made their report, and after they had seen the bunch of grapes from Eshcol (note the
contrast to the viands of Egypt), `they said one to another, Let us make a Captain, and let us return into Egypt'. It is
significant that the word `Captain' in the LXX is the same as that name of Christ in Hebrews, and the contrast is
vitally connected with the two attitudes of mind expressed in `leaving' and `going on unto', `forgetting' and
`stretching out to'. The Israelites' failure to `leave' and `go on' was used by the apostle to impress his teaching in
the epistle to the Hebrews as a warning and the possibility of losing the `Reward'.
CHAPTER 4
THE SABBATH, THE SWORD, AND THE SYMPATHY (Heb. 4:9-16).
In chapters 3 and 4 the words katapausis and katapauo (`rest') occur eleven times, and the one reference in 4:9
where the word sabbatismos is used, makes twelve in all. It is evident therefore that this `rest' is an essential
subject. In the first case the entry into the land of promise was typical of the rest that remaineth to the people of
God, for it is used directly in connection with Israel in the wilderness. That it was not the actual `rest', but a type
only, may be seen from Hebrews 4:8:
`For if Joshua (Jesus A.V.) had given them rest, then would He not afterward have spoken of another day',