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"Looking off unto Jesus, the captain (archegos) and perfecter (teleiõtes) of faith Who
for the joy set before Him, endured a cross, despising the shame, and hath sat down at the
right hand of the throne of God."
The most casual reader of Heb. 12: will not fail to be impressed with the fact that this
verse is the grand conclusion towards which the apostle has been leading. We look back
to the first verse; this in turn directs us to the eleventh chapter, which grows out of
chapter 10:, until, such is the organic living unity of the Word, to really understand one
verse necessitates understanding the general theme of the whole epistle. In such a series
as this a detailed examination of such an epistle is out of the question. There is, we
believe, scarcely a more misunderstood epistle, and as soon as space is available we hope
to deal with it in these pages.
The great key word of the epistle is the word "Perfect", and its derivatives, which
occur fourteen times. The idea expressed in the words, "let us go on unto perfection", is
the idea of the book. The word which the A.V. translates "author" in 12: 2 is translated
"captain" in 12: 10, and there, as in 12: 2, He is "perfected through suffering", and "for
the suffering of death crowned with glory and honour", although at present "we see not
yet all things put under Him". In leading many sons to glory He Himself passed through
the discipline of suffering. For Him as for them the crown was the outcome of the cross.
When the apostle borrows from the typical history of Israel to enforce the lesson of the
epistle, to what section does he turn? Does he speak of the typical teaching of the
Passover? No, for redemption is not his theme; the epistle to the Hebrews is not
addressed to unsaved ones, but to "holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling".
Does the apostle draw from the typical kingdom of David and Solomon? No, for the
kingdom of peace and glory had not yet come. He takes us to the period of the
wilderness, after the redemption from Egypt, and before the entry into the land of
promise.
"With whom was He grieved forty years? Was it not with them that had sinned,
whose carcasses fell in the wilderness? And to whom sware He that they should not enter
into His rest, but to them that believed not?" (Heb. 3: 17, 18).
What is the conclusion of and the reason for this reference?
"Let us therefore fear, lest a promise being left us of entering into His rest, any of you
should seem to come short of it. . . . let us labour therefore to enter into that rest, lest
any man fall after the same example of unbelief" (Heb. 4: 1, 11).
This unbelief is not the unbelief of the unbeliever, but of the brethren (see 3: 12).
Typically, at least, every Israelite who left Egypt was redeemed, yet many fell in the
wilderness. This did not undo their redemption, but they forfeited the land of promise.
Even Moses lost this, and none of us would say that Moses was himself lost, though he
might have been a loser. Changing the example somewhat, the apostle in chapter 5: 7, 8
adverts to the "perfecting" of Christ:--