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the body of Christ is not held out as a prize to be won, it is a most serious error to confuse
the fight of faith with the gift of grace. Let us avoid it, and bear a clear testimony.
Writing to Timothy in the first epistle, Paul said: "Fight the good fight of faith"
(I Tim. 6: 12), and the apostle evidently has this aspect of the contest in view in
Heb. 12: "the author and finisher of faith", as in II Tim. 4:: "I have fought a good fight
. . . . . I have kept the faith." "The faith." In those two words the apostle summed up the
sacred trust which he had so faithfully guarded and fulfilled. "I have finished my
course." When the apostle came to the end of his first ministry and announced to the
Ephesian believers that bonds and afflictions awaited him, he then uttered the words with
which his last epistle closes:
"But none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I
might finish my course with joy, and the ministry which I have received of the Lord Jesus,
to testify the gospel of the grace of God" (Acts 20: 24).
Dromos, the word translated "course" means a place where people "run" especially
"a race course". The English reader will recognize the word in such modern adaptations
as Hippodrome, Aerodrome, Dromedary and the like. One word used in Heb. 6: 20
appears to have been misunderstood by some commentators, that is, the word
"forerunner". It is highly probable that the reader's mind reverts to John the Baptist
when he sees the word "forerunner", and there may be some of our readers who would be
prepared to affirm that a text could be found where John the Baptist was so named. The
image that the word produces in the mind is that of a slave running before his master's
chariot, and with this image and the mission of John the Baptist in mind, we are puzzled
by the apparent incongruity of the figure in Heb. 6: 20, "Whither the forerunner is for
us entered, even Jesus."
Classical Greek provides examples of prodromos meaning "running forward, in
advance, with head-long speed, premature", "of men sent on before to reconnoiter,
scouts", "of horsemen who ride first, as an advanced guard", and of prodrome "a sally"
or "sudden attack". No such usage is found in Biblical Greek. The two occurrences of
the word translated "forerunner" in the LXX version of the O.T. refer to the "firstripe"
grapes (Numb. 13: 20), or to "hasty" fruit before summer (Isa. 28: 4).
Prodromos "forerunner" means "One who comes to a place whither the rest are to
follow", not "one who runs before another" as did John the Baptist, and with the LXX
use before us, "one who is a kind of first fruits, a pledge of the harvest that is to be".
Heb. 12: picks up the theme. We have a race to run (I Cor. 9: 24, 25; Heb. 12: 1), but
Christ has run the race before us. He endured, He triumphed, and the exhortation is to
look off unto Him the author and perfecter of faith, and with His example to encourage
and His grace to enable to run with patience the race set before us.
At the beginning of this section (II Tim. 3: 10 - 4: 8) the apostle refers Timothy to
his agoge his "manner of life". At the close, he speaks of his agon his "contest". These
words are not only linked by their place in the structure, not only joined by a common
root ago, but they are vitally associated with the doctrine involved, for the "contest" of
the apostle, stood for his whole life's witness, from the beginning--Antioch, Lystra,