God has called us to a path of faith, and in the previous chapter has given a number of examples of witnesses to what faith can be and do. It was faith that caused Abel to bring his excellent sacrifice, that took Enoch to heaven without passing through death, that moved Noah to heed God’s warning and build the ark that took him and his house through the waters of judgment on to the renewed earth, and that enabled Abraham to answer to God’s call and offer up his only-begotten son. Many of the distinguishing features of faith are brought before us in the great cloud of witnesses, of whom the world was not worthy.
Obedience to God’s word, submission to His will, endurance, patience, courage, energy, and many other traits are presented for our encouragement. The race to which we have been called has its testings, and requires endurance. Things which in themselves might be right for us can become weights to hinder us on our way to the rest of God. Natural relationships, business ties and friendships, and many other things may help us in divine things, but they can also become weights if allowed an undue place in our affections, and if they displace Christ from the heart and the life. The begetting sin of Israel was unbelief. At the beginning the word preached was not mixed with faith in those who heard it; and it was the same when the Lord Jesus came among them.
The Lord Jesus is presented to us in a twofold way: He is an object for us, and also an example. We must have an object outside of ourselves to engage our hearts and minds, so here we have Jesus as One who can engage us constantly, delighting the heart and able to satisfy our every longing. What divine strength is brought to the soul while “Looking stedfastly on Jesus.” He has commenced the true path of faith, for it is in Him only that we can see perfectly what the path of faith is. Others may display some feature of it, but in Jesus every feature is seen perfectly; and He has completed the path by entering into the presence of God.
Anticipating the joy of the Father’s right hand, He was sustained in all His sorrows and sufferings. The cross, with all its sin-bearing and judgment, was His alone, none could share in it; and this He endured until God’s wrath against sin was exhausted. What He received from man, the shame of the cross, He despised. It was not that He was indifferent and insensible to all the ignominy and contempt of the cross, or to the jibes, reproaches and insults; but what were these compared with the infinitely deeper sufferings of divine judgment. God’s answer to the judgment, and to the shame, is the place He has given to Jesus at His right hand. The throne is the answer to the cross, the crown of glory to the crown of thorns.
If we could have no part in the judgment of the cross, saving that our sins were there, in grace we can have part in the martyr sufferings of Jesus. This is the furthest we can go, “striving against sin.” Jesus resisted unto blood in this conflict of good and evil, and many of His servants have followed Him in this way into death. We may not be called to wear a martyr’s crown, but have been called to endure. Endurance for Him was the cross, and the contradiction of sinners against Himself; for us it may be some little irritations in the different circles of life in which we move.
We are so readily wearied with the testings of the journey, and so readily faint in our minds, that we need to be always looking unto Jesus, both as object and example. What a perfect and wonderful example He is! When we think of Him in this way does He not put us to shame? How much He endured; how little makes us weary and faint. Still, His example is not given to shame us, but to encourage us; and when we are occupied with Him as an object it is unwearied delight for our hearts and minds.
To help us in the path of faith we have the discipline of the Father. It may or may not be corrective, but it always has as its object our purifying. To chasten is to purify. This has always been God’s way with His children, even as Solomon wrote, “My son, despise not the chastening of the Lord; neither be weary of His correction: for whom the Lord loves He corrects; even as a father the son in whom he delights” (Prov. 3:11–12). Solomon, like the writer here, considers discipline in both its purifying and corrective aspects.
What a difference it makes when the heart is conscious of the Father’s love in the time of chastening. We should always be resting in the Father’s love no matter how trying the circumstances and conditions of life. We should always realise that trying experiences are the proof of the Father’s delight in us. Discipline from earthly fathers is an imperfect illustration of the perfect discipline of our Father. Earthly fathers have their own pleasure in view, which may be right or wrong; but God’s object in chastening is perfect, it is for our profit, He desires us to come out like Himself.
Chastening is a very painful process for us, but while passing through the grief in communion with the Father, the spirit can rest quietly in the consciousness of His unfailing care and love. Moreover, we can look at the end that the Father has in view, even as the Lord in the midst of His deepest sufferings and sorrows looked forward to the joy that lay ahead in the presence of His Father.
Even in Solomon’s day the danger for the saint lay in either despising or fainting under the discipline of God. Those who despise it treat God’s dealings with contempt, in ignorance or self-will, whereas those who faint manifest natural timidity that has not been set aside through confidence in God. There is also the danger of not being in subjection to the Father of spirits. Even where we cannot at all understand God’s ways with us, there should be the meek and quiet submission in the knowledge of God’s perfect love and wisdom.
One of the objects of chastening is that we might endure. Endurance is learned in the trials of life, and this brings us out in the character of Christ in whom endurance was perfect in every way and in every circumstance in which He was found. Another object God’s chastening has in view is our being made partakers of His holiness. While under discipline there is not the same opportunity for the flesh to gratify itself, and God seeks to bring His children in their trials nearer to Himself that in occupation with Him they might be more like Him; and it is in this way we are made partakers of His holiness.
Where the heart turns to God in time of testing there will be regard to the future, a pondering on what God has in mind in passing us through the trial. And when the heart turns to God there will be spiritual exercise that will produce the fruits of righteousness, that which is so delightful to the Father’s heart, that which gives Him joy as He sees the traits of His own Son, the features of His own life, manifest in His children. These fruits of righteousness, borne in our sorrows here will be displayed in the day of Christ’s glory, even as Paul wrote to the saints of Philippi, “That ye may be sincere and without offence for Christ’s day; being complete as regards the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God” (Phil. 1:10-11).
This day of glory in which the fruit of righteousness will be displayed is brought before us for our encouragement in this chapter, where it is written, “For ye are not come to the mount that might be touched…but ye are come to Mount Sion.” In the faith of our souls God has already brought us to the divine system that shall set forth His glory. Israel had known the bondage of the legal system represented by mount Sinai, where all was terror and demand, but Christians have been brought even now to a system of divine grace that will be displayed in the world to come.
In that day the church will come out as the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, displaying God’s glory before the universe. The innumerable company of angels will no longer be sent forth to minister to the heirs of salvation, but will be gathered together in heaven to swell the praises of God and the Lamb. God will no longer be acting behind the scenes, but will be known publicly as the Governor of His universe; the church having a place too in heaven as the firstborn ones, a special family among the many families named of the Father. The Old Testament saints will also have their glorified bodies, and Jesus will be known as the Mediator of the New Covenant that has brought His people Israel into rich millennial and eternal blessing; His precious blood the basis of all the blessing for ever family of men in that day, in marked contrast to Abel’s blood that called for divine retribution upon his murderer.
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