The Exhortation
For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you may not grow weary and lose heart. (12:3)
When we get weary in the race, when our faith runs out and we think God has turned His back, when it seems we will never get out of the mess we are in and we are sure our faith cannot hold on any longer, we should read this verse. Part of the purpose for fixing our eyes on Jesus is the same as that for considering the cloud of witnesses—our encouragement. Those saints were heroes of faith; He is the epitome of faith. Nothing we will ever be called to endure will compare to that which He endured. He is the divine Son of God, but while on earth He did not live in His own power and will, but in His Father’s. Otherwise, He could not be our example. And unless, by the Holy Spirit, we are truly able to live in the same way in which He lived, His life would not be an example but an impossible ideal to mock and to judge us.
We rejoice that one day we will “live together with Him” (1 Thess. 5:10), but we should also rejoice that we can live like Him right now. We do not live in our own power but in His, just as on earth He did not live in His own power but in the Father’s. We can say with Paul, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and delivered Himself up for me” (Gal. 2:20).[1]
3 Christ has thus become his people’s supreme inspirer of faith. When they become weary on the way, and grow faint at heart because there seems no end to the trials they have to endure, let them consider him. He suffered uncomplainingly the hostility and malevolence of sinful people; the recipients of this epistle had not been called upon to endure anything like their Master’s sufferings.
The variant reading, which described our Lord’s opponents as “sinners against themselves,” for all the strength of its attestation does not seem to have much point in this context. Attempts to give it point—such as the observation that “He, whom we so often ‘contradict,’ is our true self”53—do not commend themselves as successful or convincing.[2]
3 We saw in v. 2 how the pastor described the saving work of Christ in such a way as to make his suffering an encouraging example and source of help for the beleaguered and threatened recipients of Hebrews. He now makes the importance of Christ’s example explicit: “Consider the one who has endured such opposition of sinners against himself.” It is true that the pastor would have them put their own sufferings in proper perspective by comparing them with Christ’s. There is, however, something much more momentous afoot. He does not tell them to “consider” Christ’s sufferings but to “consider” Christ himself who has suffered. Thus, this verse emphasizes the magnitude of his sufferings and the finality and continuing validity of his triumph in order to magnify him. It is fitting at this point to take some time and consider the magnitude of his sufferings. They are described as “such opposition.” “Opposition” is not used in the narrow sense of verbal conflict but in the most comprehensive way to include all the abuse and suffering he endured.47 The word “opposition” also implies that this abuse was directed at Jesus personally by hostile persons. The personal nature of his sufferings is confirmed by “against himself.” Furthermore, this opposition was instigated and carried out by “sinful people.”49 They were not only against him, but they were also in rebellion against God. To abandon Christ would be to take one’s place with them (10:26–31). The fact that this abuse was personal accords well with its shameful character. His sufferings were great, but he was triumphant. His victory is described by the perfect participle, “the one who has endured.” The pastor is not now concerned with the triumph of resurrection, exaltation, or session at God’s right. He asserts Christ’s fully successful endurance of these sufferings without fail until the end. The perfect tense affirms that he is and continues to be such a person, one who has borne the full brunt of evil opposition with complete success. Thus, the pastor would not have his hearers “consider” Christ merely or even primarily to put their own suffering in proportion. They are to “consider” Christ as the one who has been fitted by successful endurance of the worst to sustain them in whatever they face. “Consider” is a culminative aorist imperative.52 They should come to the full realization of who he is. It is because he is one who has overcome that they need not “become weary, giving up in” their “very souls.”
The pastor again invokes the image of the runner when he says “in order that you might not become weary, giving up in your souls.” This runner is in danger of giving up the race through extreme fatigue and discouragement.54 A literal rendering of this clause might run as follows: “in order that you might not become weary in your souls giving up.” “Might not become weary” is an ingressive aorist, followed by the present participle, “giving up”—in order that you might not enter a state of weariness that results in giving up. This phrase summarizes the pastor’s concern with lassitude (2:1–4; 5:11–14) that leads to apostasy (6:4–8; 10:26–31; 12:14–17). “In your souls” emphasizes the depth of fatigue and discouragement. The race is not lost in the legs, but in the runner’s inmost being. The phrase “in your souls” is often used with both the verb translated “become weary” and the one translated “giving up.” In the Greek sentence it comes between the two. If it is taken with the former, we have the translation, “lest you become weary in your souls, giving up”; if with the latter, “lest you become weary, giving up in your souls.” A smooth English translation requires that we choose one or the other. However, by putting “in your souls” between the two the pastor could allow this phrase to qualify both. Its central location underscores his concern with the resilience of their inmost being. “The One who has endured” is able to sustain them, not primarily by removing the trials but by supplying the inner strength and fortitude they need. The pastor helps his hearers feel what he is saying by likening spiritual fatigue to a deep sense of physical exhaustion in order that they might draw upon the One who has endured. We have translated the participle with which this verse ends as “giving up.” It can also be rendered “being discouraged.” The pastor uses this word here in anticipation of its reoccurrence in Prov 3:11 quoted in v. 5 below: “do not become discouraged by his [God’s] correction.”[3]
12:3 / The readers are encouraged to consider Jesus as the one who suffered, who endured such opposition (lit., “hostility”) from sinful men. In this sense Jesus is a model of all the suffering of the righteous at the hands of the enemies of God. Consideration of what Jesus endured will prevent the readers from growing weary and losing heart. Following Jesus as their model, they can endure the most trying of circumstances.[4]
Ver. 3. Consider Him that endured such contradiction.—
Christ’s afflictions a lesson for His people:—All heaven considers or looks at Christ. The angels look at Him with reverence and adoring wonder, as their Lord and King. All hell considers or looks at Christ. The devils look at Him with terror and alarm, as their Judge and the Author of their punishment. But neither heaven nor hell can get such precious views of Christ as can those whom Christ came to redeem. They consider Him as the Lawgiver who shows the path of duty, as the Redeemer who shows the way of life. They consider Him as the Physician who heals their spiritual diseases, as the Pattern after which they are themselves to copy. They consider Him who endured the contradiction of sinners, in order that they may be not wearied, nor faint in their minds. The flowers that bloom upon a thousand hills, in more than royal stateliness, are rich in fragrant moisture; but it is not every gaudy insect that can extract the honey they yield. So, Christ, however rich and precious He be to those who know Him, is rich and precious to them alone. The ungodly get nothing by their contemplation of Him, except, indeed, a greater aversion ever to contemplate Him again. Believers are always benefited by this exercise. They are made better, wiser, holier, happier, by it. Looking unto Jesus is the attitude of spiritual health, the posture of spiritual activity, the habit of spiritual enjoyment: it is a blessed exercise—it strengthens the soul, it animates the heart, it enlivens the whole frame of the inner man. And while it is beneficial to all who engage heartily in it, be their circumstances what they may, it is peculiarly beneficial to all those who are in distress or perplexity. The contemplation of Him who suffered the contradiction of sinners hinders the mind from becoming weary and faint.
I. Look at the picture which the apostle here exhibits. It is the picture of Him who endured such contradiction of sinners. It is the picture of a mighty Being, Jesus Christ, the Son of God. It represents Him, however, as man. It represents Him as suffering contradiction, that is, animosity, hatred, and persecution. It represents Him as suffering all this from sinners. It represents the suffering as being in every respect intense, aggravated, and indescribable. Let us seek to fill our minds with a sense of what He underwent. 1. The sufferings of Christ were Divinely appointed and tremendously severe. They were not the mere natural evils which are shed upon us, all in consequence of Adam’s disobedience. They were singular, peculiar, and transcendental. They had no like, no parallel. They were infinite sufferings. 2. The subject of Christ’s suffering is deserving of consideration because, had He chosen, He could have avoided them. But He did not so choose. He did not spare Himself. He gave Himself up to death for us all. 3. Again, in estimating the contradiction of sinners endured by Christ, let us remember that He was, through out the whole of it, actuated by disinterested motives. 4. Once more, Jesus did not deserve the punishment that was inflicted upon Him. 5. Lastly, the nature of Christ’s endurance will be still more strikingly manifested when it is recollected that it was borne for the sake of those who inflicted it.
II. Let us now speak of the lessons conveyed by the picture on which we have been meditating. 1. By looking to the afflictions of Christ we derive materials for encouragement, because we could not of ourselves do what Christ has done for us. We may endure contradiction of sinners, as Christ Himself did; but ours will never be such contradiction as His. 2. Again, by looking to the tribulations of Christ we derive materials of encouragement, because we should not expect to be treated better than He Himself was. 3. By looking to the tribulations of Christ we derive materials of encouragement, because, as our great Model and Exemplar, He has exhibited to us a specimen of patient endurance and submission under the most dreadful inflictions. 4. By looking to the tribulations of Christ we derive materials of encouragement, because we find that, as our great High Priest and Redeemer, He is able to sympathise with us in all our afflictions. 5. Lastly, by looking to the tribulations of Christ we derive materials of encouragement, because, as He triumphed over all His enemies, so shall we if we be partakers of His salvation. Christians are one with their Redeemer. (Alex. Nisbet.)
The endurance of Christ:—The contemplation of Christ’s sufferings may, or may not, be spiritually beneficial to us. It is possible to occupy our attention with the physical side of the Passion to the exclusion of the moral and spiritual, and to think almost exclusively of the sufferings and scarcely at all of the Sufferer. Such contemplation may work upon our feelings much in the same way as thrilling incidents in a powerful work of fiction, and create a spurious sympathy with the Sufferer which cannot produce the effect which the passion of our Lord ought to have upon our lives. The remedy is to be found mainly in “considering Him that endured”—in keeping before us the personality of the Sufferer. But we shall only rightly consider the Sufferer Himself when we keep in mind the purpose He had in His endurance. He suffers for sinners, as well as from sinners; and He suffers for the direct purpose of removing the contradiction which He endures—to take away sins. And all profitable contemplation of the sufferings of Christ ought to have in it the desire and willingness to have its purpose fulfilled in us. In considering Him we must keep in mind His faultlessness; the entire absence of any justification for the contradiction. He was not only faultless, but good. Although graced with the perfect qualities of human virtue, and rich in the beneficent works of goodness, He endured the contradiction of sinners. Remember, too, that within, and perfectly conjoined to, that holy humanity, was all the fulness of God. In every act of endurance there is the manhood which endures as human, and there is the deeper endurance of God underlying it all. The word “contradiction” is here used to include the whole of the opposition which our Lord experienced from sinners. The Cross was only the climax of a long and varied course of antagonism out of which it sprung, without which it would not have been reached, and by which alone it can be understood and duly estimated. The first contradiction Christ endured was in the unbelief which met Him. He was the True One and the Truth; but they affirmed Him either deceived or a deceiver—utterly untrustworthy. But this contradiction advanced to open condemnation. He was said to be “a gluttonous man,” &c. They said His power over evil spirits was due to a league between Himself and the prince of the devils. They charged Him with being the enemy of God and man, a blasphemer and an evildoer. Remember who it was against whom all these false and bitter things were spoken. Consider Him, and see His brave endurance. And there was an element in all this contradiction which added to its painfulness. It was not the result, in general, of a mistake, which could be excused by the Sufferer. It had its root in personal hate (John 15:24). And He knew the cause of that hate. It came out of a conscious moral antipathy. His pure, holy, humble, unselfish life made them conscious of the unreality and holiowness of their assumed excellence. And He endured this hate—He who combined in His own person all that is gracious in God and lovable in man. This antagonism and hate could not fail to proceed to acts of violence if occasion should arise. “They took up stones to stone Him”; and, think you, was it not as if He felt the blows of hardness of heart hurled at Him as He preserved Himself from this attempt upon His life? To Christ the spiritual was not less real than the physical; and in every infliction of suffering and wrong upon Him by the hands of wicked men He felt the spirit of the acts—the sin of the world—going right down deep into His soul. Yes, the painful pressure of the crown of thorns, the piercing of nails and the anguish of the body, were means through which He bore in Himself the contradiction of sinners and of sin. One point more: This endurance of the contradiction of sinners was out of consideration to them. He might have saved Himself, and have made them to feel His contradiction against themselves. But He suffered Himself, instead of making them to suffer. His consideration for them was grounded in love—love to them and to us. In love He endured seeing them the opposite of that which He could love; endured receiving from them the reverse of what He had a right to expect, the opposite of that which His coming had made possible. If He could have hated and despised those who contradicted Him, it would have been less painful to His spirit to endure the contradiction. But the more He loved us, the more bitter became every experience, the more pointed and painful every act of wrong. “Consider Him who endured,” &c., and consider Him, with this fact in mind, that in thus enduring He was exhibiting and putting forth His gracious power to save us from sinning against Him. The purpose of His Cross is to reconcile us and all things to Himself; to bring us to harmony of mind and life with Him; to destroy our contradiction by enduring it. (R. Vaughan, M.A.)
The great source of courage:—“Consider Him.” Learn to look up. It is an exercise in which we have to be trained and drilled until we have mastered it. Unbelief gives a man a crick in the neck so that he cannot look up. But faith, like the eagle, sets her eyes on the sun and soars away until earth is lost in the mists below, and she lights on the highest mount of God. If we would have a life of singing and triumphant courage, we must get into this habit—the heavenly habit of considering Jesus. “Consider Him.” This is everything. In the Christian life Christ Himself is the Source and Strength of all. A man is a Christian exactly as he receives Christ into his thought, and heart, and life. And this is the order, through the thought into the heart and thence into the life. Therefore consider Christ—gather the thoughts in from other things, and set them upon Christ. In everything that we would get hold of thoroughly we must give our minds to it, as we say. And this means give your mind to Christ. Christ is to us what we will let Him be. If I will let Him into my life, He will fill it with light and blessedness, as the sun fills the heavens. “Consider Him”—not the truth about Him. Lectures on botany are poor things to put in place of flowers. Sermons and teachings about Christ are poor things indeed to put in place of Him. It is more than ever needful in times like these, when life is such a rush and whirl, that we make room and leisure in our lives to cultivate this art of considering Christ. Alas! what hurried and passing glimpses of our great Master do content us! There is a bit of the country—than which, I think, there is nothing more lovely in all England—that I have often passed through in the railway carriage; eagerly I have looked out of the window, over the deep valleys, woods overhanging woods, going down to misty depths, and away to the moorland, stretching up to the rugged heights; then suddenly a bank of earth has blotted it all out; a narrow cutting has hemmed us in—and then the tunnel darkness. Out again and across some viaduct; looking down on the clear stream amidst the boulders below, another glance of the hills, and then a new obstruction. And some people call that “seeing the country.” How much can one consider it amid such vexatious glimpses? But some fine day I have left the railway station and stepped out on to the moor, and in a few moments have stood amidst its stillness, the great unbroken stretch of earth and sky, the music of some little brook and the plover’s call not breaking the silence, only heightening it. Then I have gone up on to the granite height, and there under the blue heaven I have looked away, away on every side, over the miles of country, catching here and there the faint, silvery line of the sea. Then and then only I saw it—thus I could consider it. We must get away alone up into the mount of the Lord if we would consider Him. The busier you are the more you need it: this thinking about Him until He comes to reveal Himself. With many how would half an hour of such considering transform the life! He, my Lord and Captain, my Friend and Helper, my Deliverer and my God. (M. G. Pearse.)
Suffering and glory:—No pain, no palm; no thorn, no throne; no gall, no glory; no cross, no crown. (Wm. Penn.)
Consider Him:—Our troubles are but as the slivers and chips of His Cross. (J. Trapp.)
Christ with us in trial:—One thing which contributed to make Cæsar’s soldiers invincible was their seeing him always take his share in danger, and never desire any exemption from labour and fatigue. We have a far higher incentive in the war for truth and goodness when we consider Him who endured such contradiction of sinners against Himself. (C. H. Spurgeon.) Considering Christ in persecution:—Li Cha Mi, a Chinese preacher, was nearly killed by robbers during the excitement against foreigners, in 1872. At a subsequent conference, he said: “You have all heard of my sufferings during the past few months. I wish to say that these sufferings were very slight. It was easy to endure pain when I could feel that I bore it for Christ. It is wonderful—I cannot explain it. When attacked by the robbers, and beaten almost to death, I felt no pain. Their blows did not seem to hurt me at all. Everything was bright and glorious. Heaven seemed to open, and I thought I saw Jesus waiting to receive me. It was beautiful. I have no words to describe it. Since that time I seem to be a new man. I now know what it is to ‘love not the world.’ My affections are set on things above. Persecutions trouble me not. I forget all my sorrows when I think of Jesus. I call nothing on earth my own. I find that times of trial are best for me. When all is quiet and prosperous, I grow careless and yield to temptation, but when persecutions come, then I fly to Christ. The fiercer the trial, the better it is for my soul.” (The Christian.) Lest ye be wearied.—
Spiritual weariness:—
I. There is a conflict which still demands our faith and patience. The great purpose of life should be to attain the highest excellence of which our nature is susceptible. This involves difficulties.
II. We are in danger of losing heart, and growing weary in this conflict. Perhaps we may hardly wonder at this, if we think of the nature of the conflict itself, its continuousness, its unintermittent character. This result ensues, too, from the providential trials under which we are sometimes called to carry on the conflict. This danger also arises from the perpetual vigilance and resistance which are required to be exercised against custom, against kindness, against the slumbrous atmosphere in which we live.
III. This weariness and failure of spiritual determination is an evil which ought to be strenuously resisted. Weariness and exhaustion are fatal to real enjoyment. They are equally fatal to work. When worn down by fatigue, you have neither strength nor spirit for work. Moreover, there must be much danger in this state of weariness and exhaustion.
IV. The best means of avoiding this weariness and spiritual exhaustion is steadily to contemplate Jesus. Look upon Him in such a way as to call out comparison with yourselves, and it will encourage you, and enable you to rise above this exhaustion and fear. 1. The greatness and nobleness of the Sufferer! 2. Consider the poignancy and the severity of His suffering. 3. Consider the innocency of the Sufferer. 4. Consider the spirit in which Jesus suffered. (J. C. Harrison.)
Discouragements in the Christian life:—
I. Many persons are discouraged at the great difference which they experience in their feelings, when they receive instruction from the ministration of other people’s minds, and when they are obliged to furnish themselves with the truth which is required for their daily Christian life.
II. Many are liable to become wearied and faint from positive reaction, from depression arising from exhaustion.
III. Persons of a timid nature, whose religious life has, either by education or from something in themselves, turned upon conscience, or in whom their religious life is of the type of conscience rather than of love, or trust, or hope, are peculiarly liable to discouragement and weariness.
IV. Great discouragement befalls men who have a religion without any social element to corroborate it.
V. Many persons are brought into great discouragement and uncertainty as to what they shall do, because they have mistaken the full purport of religion.
VI. The neglect to consolidate religious feelings into habits is frequently an occasion of discouragement, because it leaves men subject to all the fluctuations of feeling.
VII. Many are convicted of sin less deeply at the beginning of their Christian life than long after conversion; and this not only alarms, but seriously discourages them. (H. W. Beecher.)
Spiritual weariness and its antidote:—
I. The liability of Christians to spiritual weariness. Arising from—1. The little advancement we seem to make in spiritual excellence. 2. The little good we seem to accomplish in all our efforts to serve our fellows. 3. The little difference which Providence in its dispensation makes between us and those who are the enemies of Christ. 4. The little influence which our best efforts seem to have in correcting the evils of our age.
II. The antidote of Christians to spiritual weariness. Reflection on Christ will renew our energies, reinvigorate the soul. 1. Consider what He endured. “The contradiction of sinners.” 2. Consider how He endured (1 Pet. 2:23). 3. Consider why He endured. For His enemies. (Homilist.)
Liability of saints to faint-heartedness:—It was stated some time ago, that a man had discovered an invention for making a form of crystallised carbon, which to all intents and purposes was a diamond; but his invention was useless, because of the difficulty and expense in getting any vessel strong enough to bear the intense heat to which it must be subjected during the process. And so with some of God’s saints, they faint beneath the trial, and the saintly virtue is not formed within their characters, because they have lost the power of endurance. (Canon Newbolt.)[5]
3. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.
Look carefully at the entire life of Jesus, says the author of Hebrews to his readers, and consider what he had to encounter. He literally tells them to compare their lives with that of Jesus and to take careful note of all that Jesus had to endure. Jesus came to fulfill the messianic prophecies, and therefore he came to his own people; “but his own did not receive him” (John 1:11). Instead, Jesus met willful unbelief and unmitigated opposition. He endured the hatred of a sinful world set against the truth of God. If, then, Jesus experienced such opposition, would not his followers share the same lot (John 17:14)?
The writer reveals himself to be an excellent pastor. He knows the tendency to look at the Christian and not at the Christ. Introspection causes spiritual weariness and discouragement, but looking at Jesus renews the Christian’s strength and boosts his courage. Therefore, directing attention to Jesus, the author exhorts the Christian to consider the suffering Christ sustained not only on the cross but throughout his ministry. When the Christian realizes that Jesus withstood the hatred of sinful men for the sake of the believer, the Christian ought to take courage. Then his own problems become easier to bear, and he, too, will be able to continue and eventually complete the race marked out for him.[6]
[1] MacArthur, J. F., Jr. (1983). Hebrews (p. 381). Moody Press.
[2] Bruce, F. F. (1990). The Epistle to the Hebrews (Rev. ed., pp. 340–341). Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.
[3] Cockerill, G. L. (2012). The Epistle to the Hebrews (pp. 611–613). William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.
[4] Hagner, D. A. (2011). Hebrews (p. 212). Baker Books.
[5] Exell, J. S. (n.d.). The Biblical Illustrator: Hebrews (Vol. 2, pp. 475–479). James Nisbet & Co.
[6] Kistemaker, S. J., & Hendriksen, W. (1953–2001). Exposition of Hebrews (Vol. 15, pp. 369–370). Baker Book House.
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