Thursday: Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of Our Faith
Read Hebrews 12:1-3. What do these verses ask us to do?
The climax of the exposition on faith really arrives with Jesus in Hebrews chapter 12. Paul started the letter with Jesus, who is the “coming one” and who “will not delay” (Hebrews 10:37, ESV), and Paul concludes it with Jesus the “perfecter” of our faith (Hebrews 12:2, ESV). Jesus is the “author and perfecter of faith” (NASB). This means that Jesus is the One who makes faith possible and is the example who perfectly embodies what a life of faith is all about. With Jesus, faith has reached its perfect expression.
Image © Kevin Carden at Goodsalt.com
Jesus is the “founder” (or “author,” or “pioneer”) of our faith in at least three senses.
First, He is the only one who has finished the race in its fullest sense. The others talked about in the previous chapter have not yet reached their goal (Hebrews 11:39-40). Jesus, however, has entered God’s rest in heaven and is seated at the Father’s right hand. We, together with these others, will reign with Jesus in heaven (Revelation 20:4).
Secondly, it was actually Jesus’ perfect life that has made it possible for these others to run their race (Hebrews 10:5-14). If Jesus had not come, the race of everyone else would have been futile.
Finally, Jesus is the reason we have faith. As one with God, He expressed the faithfulness of God toward us. God never gave up in His efforts to save us, and that is why we will reach the reward in the end if we don’t give up. Jesus ran with patience and remained faithful, even when we were faithless (2 Timothy 2:13). Our faith is only a response to His faithfulness.
In the end, Jesus is the “perfecter” of faith because He perfectly exemplifies how the race of faith is run. How did He run? He laid aside every weight by giving up everything for us (Philippians 2:5-8). He never sinned, ever. Jesus held His sight firmly on the reward, which was the joy set before Him, that of seeing the human race redeemed by His grace. So, He endured misunderstanding and abuse; He stared down the shame of the cross (Hebrews 12:2-3).
Now it is our turn to run. Though we can never achieve what Jesus did in our own strength, we have His perfect example before us, and so by faith in Him, and keeping our eyes on Him (as have the others before us), we press on ahead in faith, trusting in His promises of a great reward.
(24)
The metre is currently defined as the length of the path travelled by light in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458 of a second. So, if you had a perfect vacuum, and a perfect stopwatch and a perfect light source and detector, you could measure an exact perfect metre.
Most of us are happy with a wooden ruler with markings on it that are thick enough to see and numbers beside that marks that are clear enough to read. If we are measuring how much floor covering we need to cover a room, or how big a piece of material is for a dress such a ruler is perfect for the job.
"Perfection" is a term that we Christians sometimes like to get hold of and chew on until it has lost its flavour. And as the above illustration shows, perfection can have various meanings. Very few people set up the precision equipment to closely approximate the exact definition of a metre. If you were in the ruler or tape-measure business. You would have a very practical measuring standard that would ensure that your product was fit for the job.
I like reading Hebrews 11 and 12 in that context. We are given a list of faith-inspired people. Not all of them would have made good Seventh-day Adventists but in their own way, they worked with the material at hand and the conditions they lived in, bringing honour to his name. It is against this background that Hebrew's 12:1-2 is written:
Jesus provides the defined standard; we have a task to do with the materials at hand, just as the men and women of faith did in Hebrews 11.
Jesus is my true hero! Without Him I am nothing...
We are saved by grace through faith not by faith. So what is faith? It is believing that God the Creator of the world exists and He rewards those who sincerely seek Him and wish to serve and worship Him. It is trusting that He will fulfill His promises to provide, protect and transform His followers.
If we have faith in God, believe in Him, trust Him, He will work in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases Him.
Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.
What does faithful mean - it means never give up, never give in. Jesus Christ while in human form never gave up nor gave in to temptation, He trusted that God the Father would never forsake Him. Now Father, Son & Holy Spirit are tirelessly working to convince everyone, of the Good News, that if only they believe in Jesus Christ and accept His substitutionary sacrifice, they will be saved by grace through faith.
i love your comments Shirley
I like the NEB’s “And what of ourselves? With all these witnesses to faith around us like a cloud, we must throw off every encumbrance, every sin to which we cling. …. It helps me/us to remember as I/we reflect on the lives of those mentioned in chapter 11 that they were just as much human as I. I am as chosen by God as much as any of them . Their witness should be an encouragement to me .God wishes that I allow HIM to walk with HIM and achieve the character that fit for eternal life with HIM.
Dear Horace;
What does NEB stand for?
New English Bible
What a great pictorial illistration. Jesus is the one we can rely on, even on the bottom rung of our Steps to Him. Hebrews 12:1-3. 2Peter 3:18.