Moses wrote of Christ (John 5:46), Abraham saw Christ’s day (John 8:56), all the Old Testament believers believed in the promised Messiah. As the object of faith Christ is the cause of faith; even secular faith is kindled by its object. The statement that chapter 11 names nothing but examples of faith, and that thus Christ, too, is such an example, is more specious. Christ should then be mentioned in chapter 11, but without the designation τελειωτής, this second designation being here even connected with the first by one article.
Rationalism and modernism rob Christ of his deity, reduce him to a mere man, and thus depict him as being no more than a perfect example for us to follow. But what good does a perfect example do us who cannot possibly achieve perfection? We need vastly more than a perfect example, which by its very perfection may well cause us to cry in despair: “We cannot hope even to approach such an example!” From start to finish we need the divine Christ as the One who can fill us with faith, keep us in faith, and finally crown our faith.
The relative clause states what makes Christ the One who causes and completes the faith of believers: he is the One “who for the joy lying before him perseveringly endured (the) cross, despising (the) shame, and has sat down at the right (hand) of the throne of God.” “The joy lying before him” is the glorification that followed the sufferings plus his kingship over all believers.
Lenski, R. C. H.: The Interpretation of the Epistle to the Hebrews and of the Epistle of James. Columbus, O. : Lutheran book concern, 1938, S. 427.
“By the sinners against himself.” These contrasting phrases are abutted in order to let us feel the contrast: sinners—against the Sinless One. He who as the sinless One should have merited the highest praise from all men, who were not sinless, received the most terrible opposition at the hands of “the sinners,” whom the readers well know. As he has persevered through it all, the readers surely ought to consider him well now when they, who are saved from sin by him, are asked to put away the hampering sin and to manifest perseverance in running their race to a successful issue. What Christ did for them is to inspire them “in order that you may not grow tired (aorist, ingressive: get to the point of tiredness) by relaxing in your souls” (present participle, probably middle, picturing the gradual letting down of effort). The imagery of the ἵνα clause appears to be that of the runner letting himself get tired of the effort and thus quitting.
The readers were shrinking from further inflictions such as those mentioned in 10:32–34, which they gladly endured while they now thought to escape them by turning back and again becoming Jews. They had forgotten what God says about chastisement. God might have had the higher distinction of martyrdom in mind for them as he had for other believers, and now these readers foolishly shrink from even this lower and universal distinction which God finds necessary in the case of all his sons. The implication is that certain other believers had, indeed, been called to bloody martyrdom. Who these others were we have attempted to show in the introduction: they were the believers in the old congregation in Rome. As far as the martyrs referred to in 10:35b are concerned, we need not exclude them although they belong to the Old Testament period; Jesus is, however, in a class by himself as we see from the expression “contending against the sin,” nor is Jesus ever regarded as a martyr in Scripture.
The comparison covers three points: 1) the kinds of fathers 2) the time of their fatherhood 3) our relation to them. The one kind were “the fathers of our flesh,” the other is “the Father of the spirits.” These genitives have been referred to when we were discussing the question of creationism and traducianism, a question that is not even touched here much less decided in favor of the conception that our flesh or body is procreated by the earthly father while our immortal spirit is created by God in the instant of our bodily procreation and in that instant joined to our body. Both body and spirit are derived from our parents, and God is the creator of both. “He has given me my body and soul, eyes, ears, and all my members, my reason and all my senses, and still preserves them,” a simple Catechism truth on which no erudite, speculative commentator shall confuse us. These genitives do not elucidate the questions as to from whom and in what way we originate; they are genitives of relation and no more: the fathers who have to do with our bodily nature and themselves have this nature; the Father who has to do with far more than our flesh, with the spirits, both the bodiless, angelic spirits and the embodied human spirits, ourselves, all human spirits. This one divine Father is thus infinitely above all human fathers.
Hence we only “had” the latter fathers; in the case of most of us they are dead and gone, their whole father activity is ended. While the writer naturally says “fathers,” the word by no means intends to exclude mothers who also certainly were our “chastisers.” In v. 8 “son” and “sons” in no way exclude daughters—or is this writer speaking only to males and of males? This other Father is spoken of with a future tense which reaches from the present into the indefinite future: “shall we not much rather be in subjection” to him? His is to be an eternal fatherhood for us. But this is a question that is directed to our volition and not one about a fatherhood (creatorship) that simply exists but about a filial relation and attitude that we should assume, acknowledge and assume gladly. The question does not deal with a parallel: “We had earthly fathers; shall we not have a heavenly Father?” The question goes beyond that: “We respected our earthly chastisers; shall we not be subject to our heavenly Father?”
The point dwells on our relation, which our will may alter to our terrible detriment or may retain in the normal way to our great advantage. We should not be misled by the verbal correspondence: καὶ ἐνετρεπόμεθα—καὶ ζήσομεν. The tenses warn against making these two parallel: an imperfect that lies wholly in the past, a future that continues into eternity.
Much more should the meaning of the verbs prevent such a paralleling. Our having respected the earthly fathers is greatly advanced by asking about being subject to the heavenly Father. While being subject to him includes our willing acceptance of his chastisements it means far more, namely willing acceptance of our entire relation to him as our Father, we being his sons. It is thus that “we shall live”; the verb is used as it was in 10:38. This is a question, and hence the two future tenses are deliberative (see R. 875 on this use of the future): “Do the readers want this result of their relation to the heavenly Father?” Surely, they do.
R. A Grammar of the Greek New Testament in the Light of Historical Research, by A. T. Robertson, 4th ed.
In v. 12 the wording alludes to Old Testament language such as that found in Isa. 35:3, and v. 13 alludes to Prov. 4:26. Allusion is not quotation. The figurative language cannot be made physical, for a man who has paralyzed knees cannot straighten them up so as to bear him. The readers are allowing themselves to grow disheartened amid the persecutions that have been coming upon them. This laming, paralyzing discouragement they are fully able to shake off and so are able to straighten themselves up again in the full strength of faith. In the preceding verses the writer furnishes them full power to do this, and we may add all that this epistle has presented as the basis for these verses. He, therefore, now issues the peremptory (aorist) call: “Brace up!”
13) With this goes the allied call to make straight tracks for their feet (not “with” their feet). These tracks or paths are the thoughts of the readers, which are to be true, straight, leading directly to their spiritual goal. All false and even inadequate thoughts about persecution are like twisted paths that run off in all directions so that the feet do not know where they are going. To the order: “Brace up!” there is added the second: “Go straight!” Both apply to the heart and to the mind.
The thought is greatly reduced when it is referred only to the moral life, to sins of various kinds. It goes far deeper, it denotes the defilement that is due to the loss of God’s grace, to sinking back into the filth and the guilt of sin, to the bitterness which scorns Christ and his blood and his righteousness. The writer is in no way blind to the danger which would ensue for the mass of his readers if even a single one of them should fall away from Christ and return to Judaism. We may say that the danger was the greater because the readers were a compact body, all of them Jewish Christians, all worshiping in their old synagogues in Rome, which had now become Christian churches. By returning to Judaism some influential former rabbi among them might draw a large number with him. In fact, as these synagogues had become Christian, so they might again become Jewish. Obsta principiis! Resist the beginnings!
Some commentators leave us under a wrong impression, namely that as Jews the readers had had only Moses and the law while they now have Christ and the gospel. This view is unhistorical. Chapter 11 corrects it. The Jews had Abraham and the Abrahamitic covenant with all the Messianic promises, and we are told in 11:39, 40 that, although God fully attested their faith in his Messianic promises, all the Old Testament saints died without seeing these promises fulfilled in Jesus (Matt. 13:16, 17). In the development of God’s plans, when the children of Abraham became a nation and were brought out of Egypt under Moses (11:27, etc.), the Jews had come only as far as Sinai and the giving of the law 430 years after Abraham (Gal. 3:17), this law being given to them because of transgression in order to keep them in the knowledge of sin (Rom. 3:20).
But the readers have come to the actual fulfillment of the promise made to Abraham, to Jesus Christ and to all that he has actually brought. This is the history of grace. The present paragraph must be read in the light of this history. The tragic mistake of the Jews was the fact that they clung to Sinai and Moses, to the law, and were blind to the covenant of Abraham with its promise of the Messiah and thus blind also to the fulfillment of this promise in Jesus. The readers who had made this mistake and had been rescued from this mistake were inclined to fall back into it in order to escape the persecutions that were connected with their faith in Jesus. This entire epistle seeks to keep them from taking this fatal step.
There is an intentional contrast in these directly opposite phrases, and no less a contrast than that God’s present communication is far, far superior to the one he at one time made to the Israelites on Sinai. Although all those manifestations at Sinai were so stupendous they were, nevertheless, only “on earth,” in that one locality. They magnified the law mightily indeed, yet this law came only because of transgression (Gal. 3:19), as an adjunct to the Abrahamitic testament and promise. Great as this communication was, its greatness only makes this other stand out as being vastly greater even as it comes to us “from heaven.”
We see its exalted contents in v. 22–24, to which there must be added the consummation indicated in v. 26, 27. It is asked how this communication comes from heaven. We find the answer in John 15:26, 27; 16:7–15; Acts 2:11: “We hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of God.” The Holy Spirit conveys the divine gospel communication which begins at Pentecost. As now being embodied in the New Testament writings this revelation speaks to us. These readers in Rome had heard Paul and then also Peter for a brief time (see the introduction); but the entire gospel is God’s voice from heaven. The refusal to hear at Sinai was severely punished (Exod. 32:28, 35); the refusal to hear the gospel shall certainly not escape punishment. The trajection of ἐπὶ γῆς by separating it from τὸν χρηματίζοντα has been called unprecedented, but all efforts to connect it with the intervening participle cancel the contrast with ἀπʼ οὐρανῶν; we shall have to learn that the Greek is flexible enough to do what it plainly does here.
26) The contrast, one communication made on earth, the other coming from heaven, is only preliminary; it is the relative clause that brings the main contrast, which lies in what the voice did at Sinai and in what it declares it will yet do when bringing in the consummation of all that v. 22–24 contain: whose voice shook the earth at that time but now has given promise, declaring: Yet once again I will rock not only the earth but also the heaven. Now this yet once again indicates the change of the things shaken as things that have been made in order that there may remain the things not shaken.
Lenski, R. C. H.: The Interpretation of the Epistle to the Hebrews and of the Epistle of James. Columbus, O. : Lutheran book concern, 1938, S. 462.
The fact that the great rock-mass of Sinai shook and quaked is attested by Judges 5:4, 5; Ps. 68:8, 9; 77:18; 114:7. The writer combines this with Hag. 2:6, the promise which the same voice of God made and which, as the perfect tense implies, still stands: “Yet once again I will rock not only the earth but also the heaven.” The writer quotes, not verbatim, but correctly, and inserts “not only but also” in order to emphasize the truth that this “once” will include also the visible heaven itself. To shake something is to show its instability and therefore its temporary nature. Sinai shook, it was not the final, unshakable place for Israel, who also left it behind soon enough. What happened through the voice of God at Sinai is only an advance sign of what, according to that voice, shall happen again, namely the whole earth and the very heaven about the earth shall be made to rock (σείω).
Although the earth and the firmament with its heavenly bodies seem so stable and permanent they are really transient; God founded the earth, and the heavens are the work of his hands, “they shall perish” (1:10). Being shakable and unstable, they cannot endure in this condition. When time ceases, when only eternity, which means timelessness, exists, no shakable things will remain. Thus, as far as the earth is concerned, the Scriptures point us to every earthquake that occurs as a sign of the transient condition of the earth, Matt. 24:29. We read still more in 2 Pet. 3:10–13. This is, however, promise: “the voice has promised” us this mighty coming change (v. 27). We are to look forward to it with joyful anticipation. We are to long for it as we long for the coming of the beautiful springtime when the fig tree buds and puts forth its leaves, Matt. 24:32, 33.
