THE LEADER AND COMPLETER OF FAITH
THE LEADER AND COMPLETER OF FAITH
A. J. Gardiner In thinking over, dear brethren, what we had before us this afternoon, this passage came into my mind, there being an obvious link in the fact that in chapter 2, as we were having, we have the Lord presented to us as the Leader of our salvation, and here He is presented as “the leader and completer of faith”. It is very affecting that we have the light that God is bringing many sons to glory. I suppose glory is the full shining out of God in His blessedness, and the perfect answer to it on the part of men in sonship, and that is what God is bringing us to, and Christ is Himself the Leader of our salvation, the One who has in His own Person in Manhood set the matter on, and is now the full expression in glorious manhood in sonship in the presence of God of that which we are to be brought to. Indeed, it will even extend to complete conformity to His body of glory. The pattern is there already in the presence of God in the Person of our Lord Jesus Christ in glorious conditions, and we are all called with a heavenly calling to this glorious end of sons brought to glory.
Well now, the writer of the epistle speaks in this chapter of the cloud of witnesses surrounding us, witnesses to the great principle of walking by faith not by sight. I believe there is nothing more important for us in one sense than to recognise that we are to be governed by faith, and when I say faith, I am not speaking simply of confidence in God, which is an element really of piety, but of faith, that is, having unseen things before the soul. It says in Corinthians that the inward man, even though the outward is perishing, is renewed day by day on the principle of our looking not at seen things but at unseen things, and if that is the desire of our hearts, the bent of our minds, then I believe we can count on the help of the Spirit. The Spirit will link Himself with faith in the saints. On the other hand, if we are spending our time looking at seen things we shall place a great obstacle in the way of the help which the Spirit would afford us.
And so here we are encouraged to lay aside every weight “and sin which so easily entangles us”. Each one, I suppose, as desiring to go on with God, discovers the kind of thing that is a weight or hindrance, or that tends to be an entanglement. These things are to be laid aside. It is important that we should be concerned to do so, that we should have energy to do so. Abraham had energy to scare away certain birds. We are all to show energy in divine things, and the Spirit of God will help, and the grace of the Lord will help where there is the evidence of desire and energy on the part of the saints. So we are to lay aside “every weight, and sin which so easily entangles us”, and, it says, to “run with endurance the race that lies before us, looking steadfastly on Jesus the leader and completer of faith”. He has led in this way, the path of faith, a path through this world, governed by the light of unseen things, and He has completed the course. He is the Completer of faith, and He is set down, it says, “at the right hand of the throne of God”. So that there is every encouragement in looking steadfastly on Jesus.
We were thinking this afternoon of it being befitting to God “for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make perfect the leader of their salvation through sufferings”. It is a most touching thing, sufferings are incidental to the path of faith of the believer, but the Leader of our salvation has been perfected, that is, has arrived at the full thought in which our salvation is set forth in Him, through sufferings. Wonderful grace indeed that the Lord should go through on that principle, not avoiding suffering. It says sufferings, in the plural, not simply suffering as a general principle, though that holds good, but the detail of the sufferings. How much entered into it! I suppose the Lord was conscious of suffering in His spirit and in other ways all through His path of testimony here, but when it came to the last few days and the last few hours, how much was concentrated in that period! But He went through, it says, “who, in view of the joy lying before him, endured the cross, having despised the shame”. How we all shrink from shame, we all shrink from reproach. I do not suppose there is anyone who does not. At the same time the Lord is presented to us, not as shrinking from it, but as enduring the cross and despising the shame.
And so we find that the writer of the epistle brings in then the thought of the dealings of God with His sons. What an encouragement that is, dear brethren. There is such a thing as the Father’s chastening, there is even such a thing as the Father’s scourging, which is more severe, at the same time all comes from a Father’s hand, and all is because sonship is in view for us, and because the pattern of what God is bringing His sons to is already before Him in its glorious completeness in Christ. Let us then keep it before us. That is what God is bringing us to, full conformity to Christ, morally at the present time, and when the work in our souls is completed, then conformity to Christ in His body of glory. But the most important thing, of course, is conformity to Christ morally which the Father of spirits is operating in view of in each one of us.
And so the writer says that we are to consider well: “consider well” - as though he would detain us on the point, not just a fleeting passing view, “consider well him who endured so great contradiction from sinners against himself, that ye be not weary, fainting in your minds”. What an important matter the mind is, dear brethren; how easily we may allow in our minds unbelieving thoughts or discouraging thoughts, but he says “that ye be not weary, fainting in your minds”. The great point is that the mind should be held in the right direction. And so it says, “looking steadfastly on Jesus the leader and completer of faith”. Not only the detail of the path of faith in all its testings and all that calls for endurance passed through by Him, but glorious completeness apprehended in Himself as set down at the right hand of the throne of God. And so it says we are to “consider well him who endured so great contradiction from sinners against himself”, and then further, “Ye have quite forgotten the exhortation which speaks to you as to sons: My son, despise not the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when reproved by him; for whom the Lord loves he chastens”. How encouraging all this is, dear brethren. It is a question of love, and of the pleasure of God. It says, “it became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory”. It is a question of the delight that God contemplates in having us all before Him in the glorious liberty of sonship and in the glory attaching to it rightly as already set forth in Christ. There can be no greater glory for us to contemplate than the final climax of that to which we have been called and to which we are being brought, and this is the time of formation. How much there is to form in us, and a good deal to be set aside. We have been speaking, dear brethren, of being liberated from things down here, things that are unworthy of those who are partakers of a heavenly calling. The bride is in view - of course, that is not the aspect here, it is sons in view here, but the bride is in view too, one who is in every way adorned with that which speaks of real moral worth as taking character from Christ, and therefore suited to be with Him as answering to His heart. Here it is a question of sons who will answer to the Father’s heart, who will minister pleasure to Him. And so there is all that on the one hand, this example of the path of Jesus, and on the other hand the present faithful patient dealing of the Father as the Father of spirits. It is a good thing to keep that in mind, dear brethren. We sometimes tend to be unduly occupied, it may be, with our bodies. That may be the tendency with us, and, of course, our bodies are of value, they belong to the Lord, they are necessary for the expression of what is of God, and for the expression of what is right in man God-ward, but at the same time the great thing is our spirits. Think of the spirit that was found with the Lord Jesus when He said, “Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit” (Luke 23: 46), and then the spirit that was in Stephen when he said, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit”, Acts 7: 59. We might say with Stephen it was a perfected spirit, and that is what the Father is after with us, perfected spirits. He is the Father of spirits, it says, “shall we not much rather be in subjection to the Father of spirits, and live?”
Well, beloved brethren, there is plenty of pressure today, pressure in the individual circumstances of the saints, pressure too in assembly matters, but all these things under the hand of the Father, are ordered and controlled by Him in perfect skill. There is, as we have had pointed out to us many times, such a thing as the balancing of the clouds, as though all is held in perfect wisdom and perfect skill, by the One who is working with every one of us in view of this great matter of His bringing many sons to glory. And so it says, “Shall we not much rather be in subjection to the Father of spirits, and live?” And the end in mind is that we should become partakers of His holiness.
Only one word and I close, and that is, reverting again to the verse in the second chapter, where it says, “it became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things ...”. That is most affecting, “by whom”, not only for Him, but by Him. I believe we can see more and more that in all that has come in through the presence of sin and all that is attendant upon it. God is working out His own thoughts and His own pleasure in the saints, but it is by means of entering into those conditions Himself, either in the Person of the Son or in the Person of the Spirit. It is a very blessed thing thus to get that view of God, that not only are all things for Him, but they are also by Him, and we ourselves are among those who are the subjects of His gracious faithful working in view of this wonderful calling, that He is bringing many sons to glory to be before Him for ever in the likeness of Christ morally and bodily.
Well, may the Lord encourage us then in the present pressures to understand what is in view in them, and as subject to the Father of spirits to be with God in all His ways so that He may reach with every one of us the end He has in view.