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#7.
"Set your mind on things above" (Col. 3: 2).
The intimate association of the exhortation with race and crown.
pp. 135 - 137
Every part of the great work of Christ is an object of faith and a source of inspiration:
His cross, His burial, His resurrection, His ascension, and his session and manifestation
in glory. And each of these phases has its own associated doctrine and practice. To
attempt enumeration of them here were impossible, nor would it be within the scope of
this series, for at the moment we are concerned with those aspects of the faith that are
associated with "things above where Christ sitteth". One of these aspects of faith is
connected with the race and the crown. This we will consider, looking first at those
scriptures that link together the look heavenward with the attainment of reward, prize, or
crown.
"For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more
exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we look not at the things which are seen"
(II Cor. 4: 17, 18).
"If we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it" (Rom. 8: 25).
"Esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt: for he
had respect unto the recompense of the reward" (Heb. 11: 26).
The word translated "to have respect" is apoblepo. In II Cor. 4: 18 the same word is
translated "to look", with the preposition apo, "away from", prefixed. Moses looked
away from the things that were upon the earth to the things that belonged to "the
invisible" (Heb. 11: 27). The whole of creation is summed up as being either "things
visible", or "things invisible", or, as explained in the passage, "things on earth" and
"things in heaven". Moses therefore looked away from the earthly to the heavenly, from
the visible to the invisible. Abraham, who desired a better country, that is an "heavenly",
manifested the same spirit, being content to be a pilgrim and a stranger because of that
which, except to the eye of faith was invisible (Heb. 11: 13-16). The knowledge which
we gain from Scripture that those who thus act "seek" a heavenly country, helps us to
understand how we, too, can "seek" those things which are above, for, while the truth of
the mystery is not revealed in the O.T., nor is the calling of Hebrews the same as that of
the church of the One Body, the parallels in walk and witness are very real and written
for our learning.
In the estimate of faith this invisible and heavenly city had "the foundations" and was
alone worthy of the hopes and affections of faith.
In Heb. 12:, in connection with the race and the prize, the believer's attention is
drawn to the importance of seeking those things which are above, where Christ sitteth:
"Wherefore seeing we also are compassed with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us
lay aside every weight, and the sin that 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