What does it mean that Jesus is the author and perfecter of our faith (Hebrews 12:2)?

But it is not without importance to understand that our Lord is here presented, not as the objective channel of the grace we ever need, but as the unrivalled leader and completer of faith in the whole extent of its course. "Our" faith misleads, especially with "author and finisher," as if the Holy Spirit were here setting Him forth as beginning faith in our souls and carrying it on to the end, its source and sustainer. Not so: He is viewed as leader and perfecter in the race of faith in its entirety. In that race let us run. It cannot be without endurance any more than faith right through. But "through" or "by means of" endurance is here inadequate. The apostle uses the preposition also to express condition, as in Rom. 2:27. "With" in this case is right. In a world departed from God the believer's course lies through persecution, detraction, and hatred; and thus he must make his way with endurance or patience.

Herein our Lord was proved to the uttermost: "Who for the joy lying before him endured crucifixion, despising shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God." Compare Matt. 11 at the end, and John 13:31-32; 14, 17, as testimony of the joy in His view; but love, yea the Father's glory, was His motive, however the future joy cheered Him along the way. Even for us it is the same thing in principle; and the new nature, in the knowledge of God and His Son, renders us capable of it. Reward, however glorious, is never the motive; yet is it most animating in the face of danger and trial.

"Looking off unto Jesus, the author and finisher of faith." This means that He was the One who began and completed the whole course of faith. He has gone the whole way.

"Who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame." Just think of Him as the Man of Sorrows, acquainted with grief, yet joy was set before Him. It does not say He despised the cross, but He despised the shame, that is, he despised what men did to Him. The cross was different for it involved His being made sin, which established the glory of God. He despised the shame of what puny man heaped upon Him.

The Example. — The first inducement is the example, to which we are pointed. There is but One, who is here styled the Leader and Perfecter of faith. No Old Testament saint could claim this appellation. Neither the father of the faithful, the friend of God, nor the meekest man in all the earth, nor the man after God's own heart, could thus be described. To no child of Adam born in sin is this applied. To One, and One only, does the designation rightly belong, even the second Man, the Lord Jesus Christ. Already introduced to us as the Leader, or Captain of salvation (2:10), He comes before us now as the Leader and Perfecter of faith, having run the whole course of it here without any wavering or the least deviation.

Encouraged by so great a cloud of witnesses, every weight laid aside, and the sin which does so easily beset us, "let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the Leader and Perfecter of faith." Patience will needed, for the goal can never be reached on earth. Patriarchs, prophets, and others had patience; so must we, and that whilst looking at the Example set before us. Of His Sonship we have been taught (1). Of the excellency and greatness of His person we have been reminded (1, 2). Of His official position as Apostle and High Priest we have read (3, 4). Of His death too we have learnt (9, 10). Now we are again called to remember His life on earth in humiliation. Why He can sympathise with His people in their trials the Apostle wrote of in v. 7-8. What sustained Him in the endurance of His sufferings we here read: "Who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God" (12:2). Suffering, shame, reproach, all this He bore, and that for the joy set before Him, who is now seated so high in glory. Suffering, shame, reproach for Him His people may be called to bear, but with a bright prospect in the future. Such experiences are not to surprise them, nor lead any to doubt if their path can be the right one. In what circumstances was He once who has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God? This question answered should encourage His followers in their faith here. What must the world be when the Son of God had to meet with shame, sufferings, and the cross? It is wonderful to think that He should have endured them. It is strengthening to faith to remember it. The end of the walk of faith, we learn in His history, is in the glory on high.

The word for "looking" is found only here in the Greek Scriptures, having the force of turning the eyes away from other things and fixing them on one. Much blessed encouragement for faith may be found in the testimonies of Hebrews 11, but none of the witnesses could be an object for the eye of faith to rest on. There is but One who could take that place, and He must have it exclusively; "Jesus, the leader and completer of faith" — "Jesus the same yesterday, today, and for ever." And it is His, not only in the divine glory of His person (compare Heb. 1:12 and Heb. 13:8), but as having become Man and run the race before we were called into it — our Forerunner indeed — and having reached the glorious goal at the right hand of God. Nothing could bring Him more wonderfully before our hearts in His tested path as man than the thought that He was sustained in it by the joy set before Him. In John 14:28 He gave us an intimation of what that joy was: it was when His work was done He was going to the Father, which would not exclude that He would have His own with Himself there. Only that it must be something personal to Himself first, and He would have those who love Him enter into this, His joy.

Finally we read in Hebrews 12:13, "Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which 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 our faith; who, for the joy that was set before Him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider Him that endured such contradiction of sinners against Himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds". In these verses we have the picture of an arena we have the witnesses (the believers of Old Testament times as presented in Hebrews 11), we have the race with its hindrances, and we have a mark Jesus, the Author and Finisher of faith. To get the needed strength for the walk of faith our eyes have to be fixed on Jesus on Him who went before us in this race (the Author of faith) and Him who will bring us also to the end (the Finisher of faith). As He, when He was down here, looked forward to the joy following His sufferings, so we should fix our eyes on Him and the coming glory. But that is not all. We need also to consider Him who lived here as Man. Jesus had to endure much opposition from sinners when He was on earth and has given us an example, that we should follow His steps. In this twofold way we have to consider Jesus.

And Jesus is not only the Object of faith, He is the Pattern. The Spirit of God has placed before our eyes the worthy deeds of those who stood in the forefront of the battlefield of faith in old time for our emulation — a great crowd of witnesses to the power of faith. But for us there is but one way of following in the path where they were found, and it is by looking off from them to Jesus, the Author and Finisher of faith. He is the Author, for if there were no cross, there could be no faith. For faith must have a foundation. The foundation is truly the word of God, but that word is the truth of the cross. Through Him that was nailed to it we receive faith; it is for His sake alone that the Spirit creates faith in our hearts, and sustains it all through our pilgrimage, until our journey ends in being with Him, and then we have Him too as the reward of faith. When we see Him, faith ceases. So He is the Finisher of faith. Loving faith has its own termini in the cross and the coming of the Lord. We only love Him in presence of that wondrous expression of His love which was first in exercise," We love him because he first loved us;" and then begins the faith that works by love. When we see Him at His coming there is no more room for faith, "for what a man sees, why doth he yet hope for?" (Rom. 8) But it is Jesus Himself that we see, both in the cross and at the coming. He is the Author and Finisher. He is also the Pattern for faith; His whole life here below as man is one perfect teaching of faith. What absolute submission to the will of God! What complete abnegation of His own! He alone had a holy will — He alone had a right to have a will. He was always in accord with His Father — "I do always the things that please him." (John 8:29.) But He would give us a divine example. Even in His agony He said, "Not my will, but thine be done." (Luke 22:42.) Therefore we look away from all others, however bright they may be. In Him we have the perfect Pattern, and nowhere else. Every other failed in one point, if not more. So we have the Lord Jesus, the Author and Finisher, the Pattern and the reward of faith. Jesus, the only absolutely faithful Man, has His reward in that God has highly exalted Him, and given Him a name that is above every name, and to whom all creation is to bow the knee. Grace give to us that we shall be with Him in His glory, and shall behold Him in it.

In the beginning of the twelfth chapter, the expression "finisher" or perfecter of faith does not imply that He advanced in strength of faith, but simply that he completed a path of faith. It had in Him its completed work.

Here is the Leader of faith, the Originator, the Author of it — the One who begets it in us, and who is the full example of it; and He is also the perfecter of faith, who will bring His people into the place of perfection. We can only run our race with patience as we look off from everything else unto Jesus, remembering how He ran it here. There was a joy set before Him: the joy of accomplishing the Father's will, of being back with His Father after His course was run, and of having us associated with Him in the Father's presence. For that joy He endured the cross — endured wrath and judgment at the hand of God; He despised the shame heaped upon Him by man, not allowing it for one moment to swerve Him from His course and object. He has marked a straight way in which we are to follow Him, and a single object for us to run after. Here is a path for the people of God. All the stones have been cast out. It is the highway of the Lord, the way of holiness. No lion or ravenous beast is found there. No one can dispute your way, in the path which Christ has marked for you. If you leave the path, Satan has power; but he has no power when we are in the path which Christ has marked for us. How needful to make straight paths for our feet! How needful that we should not turn the lame out of the way! Christ thus beckons us forward; He would allure us on ever more swiftly as the years go by. The weights, realized as that and laid aside, we find wings to press forward with increasing joy and greater speed on to Himself.

Verse 2 speaks of Jesus as "the Leader and Completer of faith" as it may be translated. Such is the blessed Object or Goal of the saint, - "looking unto Jesus." Many others have been witnesses: He is the one Leader, the perfect exemplification of faith in all His path on earth; the Completer, He Who Himself will culminate every path of faith in blessed fulfilment of all the promises of God. In Him faith will have its complete answer and reward. Indeed, this wonderful conclusion of God's coun­sels in infinite blessing, with its future joy unspeakable, was a wonderful incentive to the Lord Jesus Himself, to endure the cross, the awful judgment of God for our sins; "despising the shame," that is, thinking lightly of the contempt and persecution of men, considering it nothing in comparison to the glory that would later be revealed. How blessed an Object for our own faith! And now He sits at God's right hand, His own sufferings over, but waiting yet the fulfilment of the fruits of His great work. Is it a great thing therefore for us to patiently en­dure? The end in view is no less certain for us, with its indescribable joy.

(V. 2). Secondly, far above and beyond all earthly witnesses, there is Jesus in the glory; and in order to encourage us in the path of faith, our eyes are turned to Him, “the leader and completer of our faith”. The Apostle does not imagine that, having taken the path outside the camp, we shall be able to keep the path in our own strength. On the contrary, his exhortation clearly implies that, having overcome the hindrances and commenced running, we can only continue by looking steadfastly on Jesus. The One who attracts us outside the camp to Himself is the only One who can sustain us when we have gone forth to Him. Others have trodden the path of faith, but they have not reached the ultimate goal; they are not yet “made perfect” (Hebrews 11:40). “Looking to Jesus” we see One who has trodden every step of the path and reached the goal. The Old Testament worthies are shining examples, but they are neither “leaders” nor “completers”; Jesus is both. In His path of suffering and shame He was sustained by the joy of that which lay before Him. As He trod the path He could say, “In Thy presence is fulness of joy; at Thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.”