Hebrews 12:2
Looking away [from all that will distract] to Jesus, Who is the Leader and the Source of our faith [giving the first incentive for our belief] and is also its Finisher [bringing it to maturity and perfection]. He, for the joy [of obtaining the prize] that was set before Him, endured the cross, despising and ignoring the shame, and is now seated at the right hand of the throne of God. [Psa 110:1] see below;
(Sit at My Right Hand
Psa 110:1-7. A Psalm of David. THE LORD (God) says to my Lord (the Messiah), Sit at My right hand, until I make You r adversaries Your footstool. [Mat 26:64; Act 2:34; 1Co 15:25; Col 3:1; Heb 12:2]
The Lord will send forth from Zion the scepter of Your strength; rule, then, in the midst of Your foes. [Rom 11:26-27]
Your people will offer themselves willingly in the day of Your power, in the beauty of holiness and in holy array out of the womb of the morning; to You [will spring forth] Your young men, who are as the dew.
The Lord has sworn and will not revoke or change it: You are a priest forever, after the manner and order of Melchizedek. [Heb 5:10; Heb 7:11, Heb 7:15, Heb 7:21]
The Lord at Your right hand will shatter kings in the day of His indignation.
He will execute judgment [in overwhelming punishment] upon the nations; He will fill the valleys with the dead bodies, He will crush the [chief] heads over lands many and far extended. [Eze 38:21-22; Eze 39:11-12]
He will drink of the brook by the way; therefore will He lift up His head [triumphantly].)
Having presented a catalog of Old Testament witnesses to the efficacy of faith, the writer now speaks of Messiah, the Jehoshua of the Old Testament, the Jesus of the New, God Himself incarnate in human flesh. He uses Him as the supreme example to which his readers should look as they run life’s race.
The word "looking" is aphorao "to turn the eyes away from other things and fix them on something." The word also means "to turn one’s mind to a certain thing." Both meanings are applicable here, the spiritual vision turned away from all else and together with the mind, concentrated on Jesus. What a lesson in Christian running technique we have in that little preposition "off, away from," which is prefixed to this verb. The minute the Greek runner in the stadium takes his attention away from the race course and the goal to which he is speeding, and turns it upon the onlooking crowds, his speed is slackened.
It is so with the Christian. The minute he takes his eyes off of the Lord Jesus, and turns them upon others, his pace in the Christian life is slackened, and his onward progress in grace hindered. Messiah is called the author of our faith. The word "author" is the translation of archegon. Vincent says that the Authorized Version is misleading and narrows the scope of the passage. The word is made up of ago "to lead," and arche, "the first." The compound word means "the chief leader, one that takes the lead in anything and thus furnishes the example." In our passage it describes Jesus as the One "who in the pre-eminence of His faith far surpasses the examples of faith commemorated in chapter 11" (Vincent). The word "faith" has the article before it in the Greek text. It is the faith of which the writer is speaking as exhibited in the examples of chapter eleven and in the Lord Jesus. It is not the Christian Faith as such, but faith absolutely. Christ is the archegon, the chief leader of this faith in that He "furnished the perfect development, the supreme example of faith, and in virtue of this He is the leader of the whole believing host of all time." He is also the finisher of the faith spoken of in these chapters. The word is teleioo which means "to carry through completely, to finish, to make perfect or complete." Our Lord in His life of faith on earth, became the perfect or complete example of the life of faith. Thayer speaks of our Lord as "one who has in his own person raised faith to its perfection and so set before us the highest example of faith."
The words "who for the joy set before Him, endured the cross," are usually interpreted as meaning that the Lord Jesus endured the cross in order that He might obtain certain joy which was placed before Him as a reward for His sufferings. But this interpretation is based upon an erroneous use of the preposition "for." The Greek preposition is anti, the predominant use of which in the first century was "instead of." It is so used in Luk 11:11 where we have, "If he asked a fish, will he for (anti, instead of) a fish give him a serpent?" The word "set" is the translation of prokeimenes literally "lying before." Vincent says, "The joy was the full, divine beatitude of His preincarnate life in the bosom of the Father; the glory which He had with God before the world was. In exchange for this He accepted the Cross and the shame. The contrast is designed between the readers (v. 1), and the joy which was already present to Christ. The heroic character of His faith appears in His renouncing a joy already in possession in exchange for shame and death. The passage thus falls in with Php 2:6-8." He despised the shame attendant upon a death by crucifixion, namely, the fact that that kind of a death was meted out upon malefactors. The words "is set down" are in the perfect tense in the Greek text, the idea being that He, after His work of providing a salvation was finished, sat down, and remains seated. He need never arise and repeat His work on the Cross for sinners. It is a finished work. He is not only seated, but He occupies the position of preeminence, at the right hand of God. Translation: Looking off and away to Jesus, the preeminent leader and perfecter of this aforementioned faith, who instead of the joy then present with Him endured the Cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of God.
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