looking stedfastly on Jesus the leader and completer of faith who, in view of the joy lying before him, endured [the] cross, having despised [the] shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.
The verse closes a long roll-call of believing men and women. It turns the runner's eye away from all of them to one Person. Two questions decide how we read it. What does it mean to call Jesus the "founder and perfecter of faith"? And what was the joy that carried Him through the cross?
Looking Off
The word translated "looking" is unusual. One writer explains what it asks of us, and why no one in the previous chapter could fill the place.
This word for "looking" appears only here in the Greek Scriptures. It means turning the eyes away from other things and fixing them on one. The testimonies of Hebrews 11 give faith much encouragement, but not one of those witnesses could be the object the eye of faith rests on. There is only One who could take that place, and He must have it exclusively.
Leader And Completer
Older translations put the word "our" before "faith." One writer argues that this shifts the sense.
"Our" faith misleads, especially alongside "author and finisher." It sounds as if the Holy Spirit were presenting Him as the One who begins faith in our souls and carries it on to the end — its source and its sustainer. Not so. He is the leader and perfecter of the race of faith as a whole.
Commentators differ here. Others hold that the title, while true of His own course, also reaches to ours.
He is also the Perfecter of faith — the One who has brought it to full completion. He has run His course and finished it with joy. He has gone on high, and just as surely as He is there, we will finish our course too.
The One Flawless Runner
Hebrews 11 lists many who believed, yet this verse gives the title to none of them.
There is only One who is here called the Leader and Perfecter of faith. No Old Testament saint could claim this title. Not one of the great believers of the past fits it — not the father of the faithful, not the friend of God, not the meekest man on all the earth, not the man after God's own heart. It is said of no child of Adam born in sin. The name belongs to One only: the second Man, the Lord Jesus Christ. He ran the whole course of faith here without wavering and without the least turning aside.
The Joy Set Before Him
One writer points to a psalm that shows what that joy was.
In Psalm 16 we get the joy that was set before Him, and there we get Him treading the whole path of faith. I have no doubt that Psalm is in the mind of the writer in chapter 12. He began that path saying, "Preserve me, O God, for in you I take refuge." The closing words of that Psalm show the goal set before Him: "In your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore."
Yet the joy ahead of Him was not the reason He went.
Love, yes the Father's glory, was His motive, however much the future joy cheered Him along the way. Even for us it is the same thing in principle... Reward, however glorious, is never the motive; yet it is most encouraging in the face of danger and trial.
Endured, Despised
The verse uses two different verbs. One writer stops at the difference between them.
Does it say that the Lord Jesus endured the shame? No, He despised the shame. It does not say that He despised the cross. We know that was an awful reality — He could not despise that. But the shame, the reproach, the disgrace, He did not think of for a moment, in comparison with the joy of having us with Him there.
Seated At The Throne
Where He now sits is the finish line. That speaks to a runner who has slowed down.
And where is He now? At the right hand of the throne of God! He has reached the goal, and that goal is in glory. This is a huge incentive for everyone still running the race. It is a greater one for those who should be running but have given up, or who have grown discouraged and now run half-heartedly.
That seat also settles a public dispute over Him.
In Hebrews 12:2 Jesus sits at the right hand of the throne. That seat is the witness that God is against the world and for the One the world threw out. He is the Captain of faith — not only the sacrifice or the Priest, but the perfect pattern of faith as a man here on earth. Now as such He was a sufferer. The more faith, the greater the suffering.
Summary
- Look off. The word means turning your eyes away from everything else. The witnesses of chapter 11 encourage faith, but none of them can be what it rests on.
- Leader. He began and completed the whole course of faith Himself, without wavering — a title no believer of old could carry.
- Joy. What lay before Him was the Father's presence and fullness of joy. But love and the Father's glory, not reward, moved Him to go.
- Endured. He endured the cross, which could not be despised, and thought nothing of the shame men heaped on Him.
- Seated. He has reached the goal. The throne declares that God is for the One the world threw out. Nothing encourages a half-hearted runner more.