Hebrews 12:2

Looking unto Jesus the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured on the cross, despising the shame, and hath sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Above the great cloud of witnesses is the great King himself, Jesus our Lord; and, although some doubt may prevail concerning the ability of the other witnesses mentioned to behold our trials, there is no doubt about this in regard to Christ. Indeed he does see, know, understand, and eternally intercede on our behalf that we might indeed win the prize. How wonderful is the contrast between such a spectator of our trials as Jesus and the vile Roman emperor, sitting in the stands of the Coliseum, dispensing life or death in heartless, capricious disregard of every virtue, and with total indifference to the human feelings and emotions of the contestants. Jesus is on our side. He died for us, beholds our trials, is sympathetic with our condition; and his holy desire is for our glorious success. He suffered and was tempted in every way as are we; but he prevailed and passed through such things to joy unspeakable and full of glory; and looking unto him, as here admonished, is the means of finding grace to follow his blessed example. "Looking unto Jesus" means focusing all of one's spiritual vision upon the Lord; for it is true of us, no less than of Peter, that our strength is in beholding the Saviour; and just like Peter, who as long as he looked to the Lord walked on the sea, but who diverted his attention and began to sink, so long as Christians keep the Lord in view, they shall prevail over every trial (Matthew 14:30).

The author and perfecter of our faith means "captain and perfecter," or as in the KJV, "the author and finisher" of our faith. Christ did not merely preach faith as an obligation for others but was himself a perfect demonstration of the life of faith while living in the limitations of the flesh, in spite of all the oppositions of the kingdom of evil. During his earthly ministry, Jesus exhibited true faith in all his actions without availing himself of any of the personal advantages derived from his supernatural powers. Thus, he performed no miracle for his own benefit, feeding his faith with the same word of God available to all, and having recourse to prayer, just like all other men, and even choosing not to know certain things, such as, for example, the day and hour of the end of the world (Matthew 24:36). In the sense, then, of having lived it to the fullest, Jesus perfected our faith, and, in addition, made the atoning sacrifice and built the institution which he called "my church" as a sanctuary for all who believe him.

Who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, ... sets forth the means of Christ's power to endure the cross. It was from the full knowledge of the joy that would flow out of his victory. For the sake of setting the shame and the joy in proper contrast, we shall note the shame first. It is nearly impossible for modern man, so far removed from the event, to appreciate the full and dreadful meaning of the cross. Paul struggled to shock people's minds on this very point, reminding the Galatians that "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us; for it is written, Cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree" (Galatians 3:13; Deuteronomy 21:33).

The death of our Lord upon the cross cast a heavenly glow even upon the rude and terrible instrument itself, encircled it with the nimbus of light and salvation, and made it to glow in the conscience of all mankind for two millenniums. Therefore, today, when people think of the cross, they think of that which is sacred in the song and story of two thousand years, that which is fashioned in gold and worn as an ornament of the good and the beautiful, that which stands in the most honored places of the world's greatest cathedrals, and that which has become a symbol of love, mercy and truth. It is lifted to the sky atop a thousand thousand houses of worship all over the world; and it crowns the highest mountains, "towering o'er the wrecks of time." It is painted on canvas, woven in tapestry, depicted in glass, engraved upon precious metals, and fashioned in costly jewels. It provides the most recurrent theme in the literature and music of Western civilization; and, in view of all this, it cannot be surprising that people fail to appreciate the shame of the cross, as intended by the author of Hebrews. In the days when our Lord confronted the cross and perished upon it, it symbolized the very opposite of all those glories associated with it ever since. It stood for degrading, humiliating, shameful, and horrible death, and for all the crimes, debaucheries, treacheries and brutal sins of which the cross was the penalty. Christ deeply felt the ignominy and repugnance associated with the cross and found the ability to endure it only by the contemplation of a greater joy that loomed beyond it, a joy that Christ himself would possess in superlative measure, and likewise a joy that would be made available to the millions of earth who would accept it.

The joy that was set before him was the joy of reversing, at last, the tragic defeat of humanity in the Paradise of Eden; the joy of knowing that Satan's purpose of destroying man was foiled; the joy of "bringing many sons unto glory" (Hebrews 2:10); the joy of the saved entering heaven "with songs of everlasting joy upon their heads" (Isaiah 35:10); the joy of the herald angels' "tidings of great joy to all people" (Luke 2:10); and such marvelous joy that, in truth, no vocabulary may describe it, no rhetoric suggest it, or finite mind fully conceive of it. Placed in the balances of consideration, and weighed against the epic sufferings our Lord passed through, that unspeakable joy overwhelmingly prevailed. It was precisely this type of weighing one thing against another that Paul had in mind when he wrote the Corinthians, "For our light affliction, which is for the moment, worketh for us more and more exceedingly an eternal weight of glory" (2 Corinthians 4:17).

And hath sat down at the right hand of God - this expression was discussed under Hebrews 1:3.