“LET us lay aside every weight and the sin that doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us.” The Apostle Paul here compares the life of the Christian in this present world to a race. He was well acquainted with the famous games of ancient Greece, and he employs in this part of the Epistle to the Hebrews the figure of the footrace, which was the most highly esteemed of these games, to portray in a vivid manner the character of living Christianity. The competitors in the ancient game were engaged merely in the natural exercise of their bodily powers for the attainment of a fading crown, but the runners in the race, of which the epistle speaks, must concern themselves about the more noble spiritual exercise of their souls in order to obtain a crown of glory which fadeth not away.
1. Let us notice what is implied in the comparison of the Christian life to a race.
There is implied in it that the sinner that is born again, and called out of darkness into the marvellous light of the gospel undergoes this blessed change, not that he may live in ease and indolence, but that he may pursue a course of the most important activity. Every other race is trifling in comparison with the race of that soul that is fleeing from the city of destruction to the celestial city. The matter at stake is salvation; the loss of the soul is an everlasting hell, the salvation of it is eternal glory. “What shall it profit a man though he should gain the whole world, if he lose his soul?” And on the other hand, we may say, “What shall it injure a man, though he should lose the whole world, if he gain his soul?” It is activity then of the most precious kind to which the Christian is called. It is, no doubt, true that once a sinner is in Christ, he obtains a sure right and title to the eternal inheritance, and all his activity thereafter does not make his title any better than it is already. But it is not for this purpose that he is called to run a race; he is not asked to buy eternal life, after he has already got it as the free gift of God. The reason he must run is that he may actually enter upon the enjoyment of the inheritance procured for him by the Lord Jesus Christ. The Christian, by the grace of God, must renounce sin and seek after holiness; he must endeavour to put off the old man, and put on the new; he must flee from the corruption and misery that are in the world through lust, and labour to obtain some foretaste of sweetness for the holiness and happiness of heaven.
There is also implied in the comparison of the Christian life to a race, that the believer must be a person of uncommon diligence. The competitor must run the race; creeping or walking will not do; he must run. Now, this clearly shews that the task set before the Christian is one that calls for all the energy of which his immortal soul is capable. The danger is so awful, and the prize is so glorious, that no labour is too great to be spent in the work. And further, there is implied in the comparison that the believer must exercise concentration of aim. The runner in a race cannot afford to be diverted from the one object he has in view; he concentrates his every thought and effort upon the attainment of the goal. Such was the manner of life of the apostle himself. He says, “Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.”—(Phil. iii. 13, 14).
It will be apparent to everyone that this figure of a race presents to us a high standard of Christianity. The examination of it should, in the first place, fill us with a sense of humiliation. When we, who profess Christ, think of what we ought to be in the light of God’s Word, we may well loathe ourselves in the dust, and exclaim with mournful emphasis, “We are unprofitable servants.” Many have room to fear that there is no vital Christianity in them at all. It is a good thing, however, when the light of God’s truth exhibits to us our unspeakable shortcomings and aggravated transgressions, and thus abases us in the dust before God. Self-sufficiency and pride are then laid low. But if there be the least drop of genuine life in us, the same light will also make us cry unto the Lord that he would exercise His mighty power upon our hearts, and quicken us unto newness of life, so that we might make a fresh start in the spiritual race. This was the disposition of the psalmist when he said, “I will run the way of thy commandments, when thou shalt enlarge my heart.”
2. The second thing we note is that “the race” is “set before us.”
Who has set it before us?
It is God Himself. We are not left to ourselves in such an important matter as this. God has appointed a certain course to be run by His people, and it is theirs to respect His appointment. Men in the pride and folly of their hearts may imagine that they can cut out paths for themselves, but their paths are paths of madness and death; they go downward to the pit. The Lord says, “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.” God Himself has set the race before us, and it is at the peril of our souls for eternity that we regard it not. But, on the other hand, it is matter of encouragement to think that it is “the right way” by which He leads His people. The race may seem to them very often a dark and trying one, and they may fear they will give up altogether, but the realisation that they are running on in the divinely appointed path encourages them to hope they may at last obtain the prize, believing that He who commands them to run is also engaged to give them the power to do so to the very end.
Where is the plan of “the race” set before us?
It is set before us in the Holy Scriptures, the Word of the living God. “The race” is there described from its starting point to its goal. We are not to value the writings of men, except in so far as they are in harmony with God’s Word. The books of men who have been taught of God may help us to discern the plan more clearly than we might otherwise do, but our supreme and infallible guide is the Word only. There are many in our day who have formulated a new plan of salvation and of the believer’s race, but they will find out their mistake, it may be when it is too late. The new plan is generally conceived upon the principle that there is no such thing as a city of destruction, a state of God’s wrath and curse; that there is no necessity for so comprehensive a change of heart as a new birth; and that the Christian race is a way of easy conformity with the maxims and practices of this present world, and not a painful striving after the enjoyment of God’s countenance, and conformity to the image and will of Christ; and that, moreover, there is no such place as hell, but that all will be saved at last.
What are the divinely marked boundary lines of “the race?”
They are the commandments of God. We must observe all these commandments; we are not at liberty to omit any of them. There is no one certainly who can keep them perfectly in this life, but every true believer has a genuine love to them all, however weak his love oftentimes may be. “I delight in the law of God,” says the apostle, “after the inward man; but I see another law in my members warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin, which is in my members.” Of course, we do not affirm that Christians in every country have been equally enlightened upon all God’s precepts in connection with His Church, although, in saying so, we do not excuse the guilt that may attach to them for their want of enlightenment. But in a country like ours, where there has been for centuries very clear light not only upon the doctrines of grace, but also, for example, upon the manner of God’s worship, we hold that those persons sin very grievously who, in such circumstances, introduce things into His worship that have no warrant from the New Testament. At the present time the hedges are being broken down, and men are running hither and thither at their own pleasure; they are like the horse or mule that cannot be held in by bit or bridle. It is not only in worship, but in almost every line of thought and action in connection with the Christian Church that there is a removing of the boundary lines that the Lord has appointed. The commandments of God are grievous to the natural man, and so he must, as far as he can, approximate the Christian race, as marked out in God’s Word, to the broad way that leadeth to destruction. Happy are they, however, who are enabled by divine grace to run the race, both in their private life and conversation, and in their public testimony for truth, along the course that is prescribed by the unerring Jehovah in His Infallible Word.
We hope to resume this subject in a future issue.