‘Laying aside every weight and the sin which so easily entangles us, let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith’
- Hebrews 12:1-2 -
The Christian life is knowing when to speak and when to hold your tongue. That isn’t easy, especially not when we remember that Paul told the Ephesian elders how “night and day for a period of three years I did not cease to admonish each one with tears” (Acts 20:31). The apostle’s ceaseless efforts can heap guilt on our silence. We think we need to constantly preach, clanging noisy gongs on every corner, crying “THE END IS NIGH!” But if we breathe deep and open the Word, we soon recall Solomon’s wisdom that ‘there is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every matter under heaven…a time to be silent and a time to speak’ (Eccles. 3:1,7). Wise words indeed.
Jude’s little epistle gets lost in the shadow of Revelation despite maybe having the most intriguing start of any New Testament letter. Jude, the half-brother of Jesus, admits he had one intention when he sat down to write, yet he wound up writing something else. He ‘was making every effort to write…about our common salvation’ (Jude 3); to celebrate God’s grace. But then, out of the blue, either a troubling report arrived or the Holy Spirit convicted Jude to tell believers to ‘contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all handed down to the saints’ (3). His brief letter is a marvel, touching on everything from predestination to perseverance, yet I can’t help but wonder what he originally planned to write.....how about you?
Martin Luther said: “If any man ascribes anything of salvation, even the very least thing, to the free will of man, he knows nothing of grace, and he has not learned Jesus Christ rightly.” But Jude had learned Christ rightly, having moved from seeing Jesus as merely his human brother to believing that He was God incarnate. So, if the Spirit had led Jude to rejoice in our common salvation, what might he have said? The choices are almost endless, but as lovers of Christ and His Word, we ought to relish such chances to swim in deep waters.
Jude might have echoed Paul’s brilliant and succinct description of salvation to the Corinthians; how God ‘made Him (Jesus) who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him’ (2 Cor. 5:21). Maybe Jude would’ve unpacked the wonders of the Trinity, or our duty as Christ’s witness to the lost. Then again, my hopeful guess is that Jude would have unpacked Christ as captain. If so, Jude could have employed the wonderful Greek word archegos, which appears twice in Acts and twice in Hebrews. The word describes Christ as our chief; the author of our shared salvation. Our eternal archegos!
In the Book of Acts, Peter uses archegos to call Jesus ‘the Author (archegos) of life, the One whom God raised from the dead, a fact to which we are witnesses’ (3:15). Later on, during their first dose of persecution, the apostles refuse the Sanhedrin’s order to cease preaching, saying: “We must obey God rather than men. The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom you put to death by hanging Him on a tree. This One God exalted to His right hand as a Leader (archegos) and a Savior, to grant repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins” (Acts 5:29-31). Already, the weight of this one word is shifting into focus.
Archegos appears twice more in Hebrews 2:10 and 12:2. These passages unveil Jesus as the One who authored salvation by suffering physically and spiritually on the cross. These two passages encourage us to lay aside sins that ensnare and run the Christian race all the way to the finish. But, you may ask, how do we run this race? The answer is simple yet profound: we run well by ‘fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author (archegos) and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and [He] has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God’ (Heb. 12:2). What confidence is ours to claim if we just pursue Christ!
So, from this one word – archegos – we learn that Jesus Christ is the author, archetype, leader, and founder of our faith. That’s a lot to fit into just one word, but we’re not shocked when we remember the Author of Scripture - the Holy Spirit - is the master of language and searcher of truth. All His God-breathed words are ‘profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness’ (2 Tim. 3:16), as it is ‘the Spirit [who] searches all things, even the depths of God’ (1 Cor. 2:10). This is why every word and phrase of Scripture warrants pouring over as we run the faith race.
As 21st century readers, we hear a word like archegos and we have to search Greek lexicons to unravel its meaning. Such was not the case for the first readers of Acts and Hebrews, who spoke Greek at home or at work. We are, therefore, wise to ask where their minds went when they heard archegos applied to Christ. These 1st century saints had heard God’s holy Law from faithful preachers and been awakened to their sinful nature. They had realized they were hardwired to disobey God and that their moral compass was cracked. They therefore needed a holy captain to ferry them to the eternal shore. They needed an archegos! They need Christ!
In the ancient seafaring world, every ship’s crew had an archegos. This man was the strongest swimmer as his was a formidable task. Should the ship run aground on reefs or rocks, the archegos would lash a rope about his waist, dive headlong into churning waters, and swim for shore with all his might. Once he reached land, his rope was fixed to a tree or a boulder so that the rest of the crew could come along safely to shore. This dazzling feat of heroism is what sprang into the minds of Peter and Paul’s original hearers when they heard the word archegos. And it’s where our minds should go too.
If a ship’s archegos drowned, the crew was doomed to die. But Jesus Christ, the eternal archegos, didn’t drown! He swam through death’s stormy waters only to resurface in resurrection glory (1 Cor. 15:3-4). Christ braved the dark tide with humanity’s sin on His shoulders to reach heaven’s shore. He tied a rope to that distant shore 2000 years ago, and ever since He has ensured we reach salvation if we only trust in Him. None will be lost except those already doomed to destruction, for Jesus told the Father: “I guarded them [the elect] and not one of them perished but the son of perdition [Judas], so that the Scripture would be fulfilled” (John 17:12). Thank God for Christ our captain! Trust in Him and no other.