Hebrews 12:1, commentary and pictures

Surrounded by the faithful of the preceding chapter who endured suffering and won the victory, the believer is to drop every hindrance and clinging fault and keep running the appointed course with steady endurance. The witnesses are both those past heroes from Abel to the prophets and those who now watch the life, God, angels, the world and even evil watchers, so conduct itself becomes testimony. Every weight is anything that impedes progress, selfish aims, worldly attachments, appetite, temper and cherished faults, and the closely besetting sin is unbelief and distrust of Christ, with each person also having his own particular tendency that must be found out, confessed and overcome by cooperation with divine strength. The race is the lifelong struggle for holiness and eternal life, run by looking to Jesus who marked the way by His own suffering, enduring trial step by step without weariness and putting forth earnest personal effort as if all depended on it. Unlike an earthly contest where only one wins a fading prize, all who run faithfully in consecration and self-denial may receive the unfading crown of life at the Judgment.

Cloud of Witnesses

The great cloud of witnesses is the faithful company described in the preceding chapter, set around believers so that their experiences may benefit and pattern the church. They are Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses and the prophets who by faith subdued kingdoms, worked righteousness, received promises and shut lions' mouths. Their example does not make them objects of idolatry nor human leaders and patterns for the Christian life in place of looking to Jesus, the head and leader of the church.

The witnesses also include those who now observe the runner: the world, God, and heavenly angels and intelligences watching the course. They include multitudes in the world, the Monarch of the universe, and myriads of heavenly angels watching with intense interest the efforts of those who run. They include people watching believers' conduct in every place and circumstance, and many eyes upon the runner, so that conduct testifies and shows the truth to the world. They include even evil angels and the Prince of Life watching, with actions seen as by spectators, with reward according to persevering energy and faithful earnestness, and with workers as ambassadors under obligation to live faithfully, honor the truth, and practice what they teach.

The surrounding witnesses encourage patient endurance in the appointed course of faith, which is the present testing time in which gaining the crown of life requires persistent effort and greater self-denial than may be expected. They are faithful people who endured persecution and death, whose example calls for laying aside every hindrance and clinging sin and running patiently while looking to Jesus through sorrow and trial unto eternal glory. Their prior suffering and victory show that the onward course can be completed, giving the very highest incentives to form characters God can approve, bringing rich grace for laboring together with God so that none need be hopeless or sink into discouragement. Their hardships, sufferings, and blood on the wall of the narrow way remind followers that others have endured the same pain and keep them from fainting and giving up in discouragement. Those who suffer faithfully as they did will share the eternal reward and reign with Christ.

Ministers and messengers in particular are compassed about with this cloud, and therefore must go forward in faith on the plain path Jesus has set without turning aside. Worldly policy is to have no weight with them. They are to speak not their own words but only the words God commands as Thus saith the Lord, reproving, rebuking and exhorting with all long-suffering through Christ's Spirit. As stewards with awful responsibility they are to bear God's message to sinners faithfully regardless of consequences, even at the cost of all, like Elijah, Nathan and John the Baptist, encouraging the obedient and warning the disobedient.

Weights to Lay Aside

To lay aside every weight means to drop every hindrance, burden and entangling clinging thing that impedes the course, putting off the former old man corrupt according to deceitful lusts and putting on the new man created in righteousness and true holiness. Laying aside is only the preparation and not the victory itself, for after it is done the utmost exertion is still required to gain the triumph and win enduring honor and immortal glory. That further running calls for fortitude, patience and self-denial, with all habits and passions brought under strictest discipline and with reason enlightened by God's Word and guided by His Spirit holding control. Attention must not be attracted by spectators nor diverted by amusements, luxuries or love of ease. A course of action that binds to sin and keeps from advancing in religious life must be cut off as a hindering weight.

Weights are clinging selfish aims and worldly desires that hinder living for Christ and striving for mastery, including selfish purposes, ambitions and desires not surrendered to Christ's will and way. They include self made the mainspring of action, self-interest, love of ease, earthly possessions, comfort and personal advantage, wealth, worldly honor, selfish ease and freedom from responsibility, and worldly attachments, influences, ties, motives, reserves and secondary objects that draw the heart from God so discipleship cannot be divided between God and the world. They include unhallowed ruinous dead weights, harmful associations, property clung to in the time of trouble unless placed at God's disposal for truth, and temporal and financial enterprises that distract from faithful following. They include an unbelieving spouse or marriage that draws thoughts and desires away from Jesus toward worldly pleasures, so that those with little spiritual strength need help rather than hindrance. They include worldly ambition, pride, stubbornness, uncontrolled temper, severity and domineering dictation mingled with the work, and the desire to accumulate means and a life of self-indulgence to be put off by prayer, repentance and transformation of character.

Weights also include envy, malice, evil thoughts and speech, and covetousness, with every habit or practice leading to sin and dishonoring Christ to be put away whatever the sacrifice. They include appetite and intemperance, for indulgence of appetite corrupts judgment and conduct and entangles the runner seeking eternal life. They include unnatural physical indulgences and lack of temperance in eating, drinking, dressing and labor, which strengthen fleshly desires warring against the soul and degrade body and soul. They include selfishness and self-interest, foolish talking and jesting and foolish amusements, self-importance, and pride, stubbornness, uncontrolled temper and a sharp ruling spirit to be mastered through meekness and calm under abuse. Even one cherished sin degrades character, misleads others, hinders prayer, and can separate from God.

Laying aside weights means serving God most faithfully with firm, full purpose of heart in partnership with Christ as Christ works in partnership with the Father, to honor and glorify the Redeemer who bought with blood. It means disciplining self with sternness and rigor to habits of order and thoroughness and doing all the hands find to do, whether with hand or head, well and with exactitude. It requires putting Christ first and last and best in everything and giving up self for His will and way, cutting away everything hindering progress, denying evil inclination, overcoming habits not in harmony with God's Word, refusing forbidden paths, keeping no room for evil surmisings, doubts, criticisms, envy and unkindness, and being one with Christ. Clinging to negligence, carelessness, unfaithfulness in small duties, mere theory of truth without obedience, and vacillation between Christ and the world makes striving purposeless, leaves the heart uncleansed and self-ruled, opens the mind to the enemy for unholy devices and selfish advantage, shuts out Christ's peace, and leaves God unable to bless.

Laying aside is done by determined human effort cooperating with God, using powers fully while accepting freely offered grace, with Christ's presence in thought and heart giving purpose to put sin away and making room for God's fullness and love. It belongs to true conversion, without which truth cannot be kept nor the world, temptation and perverted appetite withstood except by strength from Jesus in humble obedience and continual dependence to please Him who loved and died. The struggle continues until every wrong and every besetting sin is overcome in order to follow the Lord, yoke with Christ, build on the rock rather than risk eternity on probability, and prepare to meet God with renewed heart, transformed soul, pardoned sins and new birth.

Besetting Sin

The sin that so easily besets clings closely, presses upon every soul, readily entangles and easily takes hold unless it is firmly resisted and faithfully watched against. Each person must watch faithfully to discover where he falls and seek a new victory every day, relying wholly on God for strength, wisdom and guidance so that sin does not gain mastery or dominion. That overcoming includes pride, selfishness, love of the world and wrong words and actions, and it is part of the preparation needed to stand before a holy God and receive the refreshing. The pure in heart lay it aside, victory comes through Christ with self-denial and cross-bearing in stern spiritual struggle, and the Lord gives grace to overcome.

In this application the besetting sin is unbelief and lack of faith in Christ as sufficient. It is shown in fostering doubt, in self-indulgence, self-confidence, pride and self-sufficiency by hearts not stayed on God and not cooperating with Christ, and it makes its captives the captives of the enemy. It is natural to foster doubt rather than to believe, even doubt about oneself and one's work after God's message has been presented and its fruits seen, so it must not be cherished even for a moment but cast off as a burden. Cast off, it is replaced by seeking strength from Christ and trusting to receive His compassion and help, with the heart fixed on God and cooperating with Christ in salvation by faith in His power and grace to resist temptation and overcome inherited and learned evil tendencies.

Each person has his own character with a particular evil tendency that clings most readily and particular temptations most likely to overcome him. Knowing it requires self-knowledge gained by faithfully examining motives, principles, acts and heart against the standard of duty in God's Word with meditation and prayer. One who knows his weakness must not needlessly expose himself and invite temptation by placing himself on the enemy's ground. When duty calls where circumstances are unfavorable, God gives special help to go fully prepared and girded for conflict with the enemy, and such self-knowledge saves from falling into grievous temptation and inglorious defeat and keeps ministers from being easily tempted and moved, stablished, strengthened and settled with undivided interest in God's work.

Overcoming requires true repentance, not mere outward reform, a change of heart turning from every besetting sin to God. Reproved sins must be thoroughly confessed and forsaken so the heart is cleansed and acquitted, habitual untruth upon the lips and other habits against righteousness must be faced until conquered and not merely confessed while the habit remains unconquered, and truth enshrined in the soul makes a man of God by the perfect standard of righteousness. Traits of character whether inherited or cultivated are to be measured by the rule of righteousness and conquered through Christ's strength, with the aim not to appear perfect in one's own eyes but to become complete in every good work by putting aside self-directed ways. This work requires continual resistance and ongoing self-denial and sanctification, and carefully and prayerfully forming the habit of resistance makes the fight against the power continually seeking to overcome the soul less difficult. The beginning of evil must be resisted because yielding step by step dulls shame and conscience and leads to greater sin, and human effort must join with divine help to overcome sinful tendencies and Satan's temptations while following Jesus as leader and trusting God continually.

Besetting sin grows stronger by indulgence, neglect and cultivation when personal piety is neglected and Christ's self-denying, self-sacrificing life in purity, devotion and self-sacrifice is not imitated and followed closely as divine Leader. Here selfishness and covetousness are such sins by which Satan leads further into sin until generosity and other noble principles wither, men grow weary of doing good and forget Christ's sacrifice to redeem from Satan's power and misery. By negligence and sin men separate from Christ and fall behind Him into company with the indolent, slothful, backsliding, unbelieving, irreverent, unthankful and unholy with evil angels, unto darkness, doubt and unbelief about doctrine. The enemy seeks out weaknesses and surrounds the unwary with darkness until caught in his snare, so those professing truth must remain watchful lest besetting sins entangle them and keep them from watchfulness. A defiling habit hard to overcome may persist despite repeated resolutions, and such conduct can draw others, especially youth, into the same temptation, unlawful desires and corruption of moral principles.

Race with Patience

The Christian life is the race set before each believer, a race of faith toward eternal life and holiness that calls for single-hearted purpose, patient endurance and persevering effort. Those who would share Christ's glory must suffer with Him, laying aside every hindrance and the sin that readily entangles while looking to Jesus and taking encouragement from the surrounding witnesses. This is the present time of testing in stern conflict, even under persecution for His name, and gaining the crown of life requires persistent effort and greater self-denial than may be expected.

Running is a lifelong struggle with no release, to be run lawfully day by day in seeking piety, moral excellence and perfection in Christ until His ideal is reached. It is the conquest over self for holiness and heaven and the victor's crown through years of holy endeavor and firm adherence to the right, for wrongs are not righted nor character reformed by a few feeble, intermittent efforts. Sanctification is not the work of a moment, a day or a year but of a lifetime, and conversion only begins salvation, with conflict and discipline continuing as long as life lasts. It requires a disciplined, educated, trained mind, discarding training out of harmony with God's service, forming habits of thought that resist temptation, looking upward, and bringing every act, word and thought into accord with the high principles of God's Word, thereby acquiring courage, fortitude, meekness, faith and unwavering trust in His power to save. Life must be run faithfully in order to be victorious, with determined effort and steadfastness to the end because eternal life is at stake.

Patience is steady, faithful continuance amid adversity, sorrow and trial without growing weary and faint, looking to Jesus who endured the cross and shame for the joy before Him. It advances step by step, meeting and overcoming obstacles one at a time, with each effort strengthening for the next and steady progress leading toward the goal. The work is not completed all at once, but each day's opportunities and helps from God are to be used faithfully, each day bringing its duty to do. Such faithful running prepares for adversity and gives confidence to trust God from knowing one has done his best, distinguishing the righteous whom God never forgets in suffering and affliction. Believers must not dwell on unworthiness in a way that destroys faith, courage and hope, but rest hope in God's promises and immortal life, and overcome hindrances by effort, self-denial and sacrifice which bring greater ability and courage to continue.

Running is forward advance where every step is progress toward the object set before him, forgetting things behind and pressing toward the mark of the prize of the high calling. Each temptation overcome marks a triumph, and each night of conflict and trial bravely borne brings a better day, with each faithful step bringing nearer the great white throne and the crystal sea. It is a narrow, difficult path and rough, steep ascent with pitfalls, requiring toil when weary, fighting when faint and hoping when discouraged, advancing step by step and continuing in well-doing until the race is finished and the victory gained. It is as a steep, frail, narrow stairway upward that many climb, run by keeping the eyes fixed upward and not looking down, for looking down brings dizziness and falling. Travelers must give up whatever hinders progress, even useful comforts, and continue carefully step by step, aided by cords from above signifying dependence on God for keeping balance on the perilous path. Even when friends and acquaintances refuse to follow Jesus, those who keep following the heavenly light discerned by faith will receive the crown of life, trusting God for help to live rightly today and asking strength to continue tomorrow.

Running calls for earnest personal effort as if all depended on it, with energetic, faithful labor and not idleness, pressing toward the heavenly prize rather than remaining indifferent. It is work, fight, self-control, coming to God, resisting the devil, striving to enter the strait gate, fighting the fight of faith, wrestling with principalities, agonizing in prayer, and daily obedience shaped by Bible truth, pressing onward to complete victory with heaven cooperating. It is a contest for the soul against Satan, to be resisted in Jesus' name, overcoming sin and resisting surrounding moral evil, for a fading laurel is not the reward but everlasting life, an immortal crown and imperishable inheritance. Believers must not loiter behind but press forward to the mark, with sanctified sympathies interwoven in life experience to win hard hearts, working for the salvation of others and keeping baptismal vows. The race is the work of obedience and growth in Christ pursued through the grace and help God provides, each person responsible for responding to that help, so that ruin if neglected lies at one's own door and is not to be blamed on God.

The appointed race is to be run with patience along the narrow path to everlasting life, with steady perseverance and preparation to walk rightly, Jesus with believers each day as Helper and Strength. Each person is to run the race set before them by taking up the special work suited to abilities, with differing abilities and duties serving the body of Christ without division and no one hindering another from running with unwavering purpose to win. For mothers the home is the mission field and the race is forming children's character and preserving and developing their physical, mental and moral powers to make them what God would have them be, by daily imprinting the Saviour's lessons, teaching self-control and giving useful employment, dropping every hindrance and entangling sin. It embraces duties, associations, crosses, prayer and labor for others' salvation, resisting invitations to wrongdoing, heeding God's voice in Scripture, preparing to meet God and remaining watchful because time is short. It is run through hardships and self-sacrifice without complaint or expectation of ease, keeping eyes fixed on the prize at the end rather than seeking reward in this life, by taking up the cross, grasping God's downreached hand as mighty Helper, keeping baptismal vows, enlightening souls, praying constantly, beholding Jesus and not men, revived by the Spirit, looking beyond the present tribulation night to the soon-dawning eternal morning, and gaining wisdom by God's Spirit rather than human wisdom.

Looking to Jesus

The race is run by looking to Jesus as the author and finisher of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross and despised its shame and contradiction from sinners and now sits at the right hand of God's throne. Considering His endurance keeps the mind from becoming weary and faint while striving against sin, not yet unto blood, and receiving the Lord's chastening as a father's dealing with sons whom He loves yields righteousness. That looking means putting off the former old man corrupt according to deceitful lusts and putting on the new man created after God in righteousness and true holiness. It calls for sincere repentance and conversion, and for treating those in error with loving unselfish Christlike interest to win them to repentance, so that sins go beforehand to judgment and are blotted out when refreshing comes from the presence of the Lord.

From childhood and youth Jesus Himself had this race and the joy set before Him ever before Him as the inducement for His work of mediating for fallen man. He diligently studied the Scriptures and every prophecy of His humiliation, atonement, and intercession, keeping before Him the joy and the prospect of seeing seed who would prolong their days with the gracious purpose of the Lord prospering in His hands. Looking to Himself as the author and finisher of faith, who endured the cross and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God, was a subject of His own youthful meditation and prayer, watched with deep interest by heaven and the universe of heaven as He offered Himself to intercede for fallen humanity.

Jesus has marked the way by His own footsteps, leading and completing faith through self-denial and suffering along the path He traveled and marked with His blood. Believers can follow Him through that self-denial, keep His humble self-denying suffering life before them and seek to imitate Him, and share His self-denial and suffering as they follow that path. With Christ as guide runners will not fail of reaching the desired haven at last, because Christ Himself has trodden the same rough steep way before them with its pitfalls and has smoothed the path for their feet. Keeping the eyes on Jesus and on the reward of the incorruptible crown and eternal life gives renewed strength to run patiently, guards words, thoughts, and actions, and calls for toil, self-denial, and sacrifice rather than choosing ease.

Looking to Jesus brings light from heaven in times of trial and perplexity to those who earnestly seek His help and persist in obedience even at great cost, when hindrances arise in following God's will. That looking enables overcoming, while fixing attention on difficulties and shrinking from the struggle for what is right weakens faith; obstacles are met and overcome one at a time, each effort strengthening for the next through each day's opportunities and helps faithfully used. Running thus means striving with every power of the being to be an overcomer and taking up the cross to follow Christ, grasping the hand of God reached down to save and relying on Him as a mighty Helper, an effort that brings happiness, glad satisfaction, and nobility of soul rather than misery and condemnation. It means following Jesus as leader with continual trust, joining human effort with divine help to overcome sinful tendencies and Satan's temptations, resisting the beginning of evil lest yielding dull shame and conscience toward greater sin. It means, as Paul did, laying aside interests that conflicted with duty and counting what had been gain as loss for Christ, in a daily struggle against selfish desire and indwelling sin requiring self-control and reliance on God's grace with holiness as its aim and overcoming as Christ overcame. It means holding His promise by living faith and sanctification and keeping Christ as the Pattern before the eyes toward the unfading crown of life, since self-importance can weigh a person down and besetting sins hinder progress.

Prize and Faithful Effort

The Christian life is a patient race run with the goal of immortality kept in view, following the self-denying suffering path already marked out. Unlike an earthly contest where only one receives a perishable prize and the outcome is uncertain, all who run faithfully may receive the heavenly prize. The crown to be gained is life itself, incorruptible, imperishable, unfading and everlasting, obtained by persevering in the appointed course.

Keeping that prize of eternal life in view gives reason for strict discipline, self-denial, temperance and earnest missionary effort, with eyes fixed on the reward for renewed strength to run patiently. Running calls for guarding words, thoughts and actions and accepting toil and sacrifice rather than choosing ease, imitating a humble self-denying life and doing one's best with confidence of receiving the prize. The race ends at the Judgment when the books are opened and the righteous Judge gives the crown of righteousness.

The crown is gained by patiently running the appointed course in high and holy consecration, breathing the breath of God and receiving the Holy Spirit in order to save those perishing in sin. Faithful running means gaining high noble spirituality and staying alive in Christ, not remaining under the torpor of spiritual death, not resting on orthodox theories, church membership, diligent performance of a round of duties, or forms and ceremonies which without life in Christ are worthless. Laying aside hindrances enables active work for the Master rather than idleness, for being absorbed in temporary worldly concerns, temporal pursuits and alluring prospects makes workers lose sight of their work for Christ.

Wrestling earnestly is required lest the prize be lost, striving for a crown of glory that does not fade away by resolving with thought and will to represent Christ in sweetness of character, putting away gloom, beholding Jesus to be changed into His likeness, and advancing in spiritual attainments. Wholehearted running presses on toward perfection and complete Christlike character, arousing the energies of the soul and putting all that one has and is into God's enterprise for time and eternity. Taking deep draughts of the water of life, growing in love, conformity to God's will, union with Christ and readiness to sacrifice to save perishing souls makes the message borne a living message filled with the earnestness of the Spirit, bringing success in service and increase in conversion of souls.

Such consecration means self-sacrificing effort unhindered by obstacles or neglect, with workers depending on God and Christ rather than letting inherited or cultivated traits shape conduct into crooked paths that cause others to stumble. As hindrances are put away and steadfastness in service is maintained, the Holy Spirit works through believers and they become fishers of men, laboring humbly in prayer and faith without seeking human praise, walking carefully and putting away cherished sin which hinders prayer and separates from God. Daily choices shape character and lead others toward or away from heaven, so training for efficiency is blessed with greater intelligence.

The race is for every true worker walking as a child of light at the close of the day, striving for a crown of glory that fades not away through faith working by love and purifying the soul, walking by faith not sight, enduring chastening as sons until it yields peaceable fruits of righteousness, and laying aside desire to accumulate means and a life of self-indulgence by prayer, repentance and transformation of character. Parents are to turn eyes from worldly vanities, pleasures and ambitions, avoid influences drawing away from Christ, and teach children to resist them and live by righteousness, since the promised reward is glorious and immortal. In dealing with one who has repented, the struggle to overcome sin is to be recognized and the person welcomed back, while repentance and restitution remain necessary.

Heaven and eternal life outweigh earthly riches so that no sacrifice for truth is too great, nothing handled is one's own but the Lord's goods to test faithfulness, and favor with God cannot be purchased with money, for eternal life is worth more than ten thousand times ten thousand worlds.