Paul has represented the believer’s life with two comparisons: first, by a race, second by a fight.
The believer’s life is a race. The length is a man’s lifetime. He has a “high calling” to enter the race. The prize for which he runs is eternal life in the coming New Age. Yehovah is the one who set up the race and who starts all the runners by His Word. Every direction from His Word is an encouragement to the runner. Every action or word is a step in the race and must be taken with great care and energy.
Paul exhorts us to “lay aside every weight, and the sin which does so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith.” [Hebrews 12:1].
He issued this exhortation after having enumerated a long list of holy ones from every age, who testified to the power of faith; that showed by their lives what this principle can achieve, especially since we have before us the faithful and true Witness, the only perfect man Jesus Messiah, the righteous One.
In the athletic games of Paul’s day men in training for the race fastened weights on their lower limbs below the knee. When the day of the contest arrived they cast them aside, also their robes. The figure is plain. We have two distinct things to discard, “every weight’’ and “every transgression.’’ The laying aside of both is very needful for ultimate success in the race. We, as runners, must lay aside every sin that besets us, and everything that tends to weigh us down, or that tends to hold us back. That is to say, the former bad habits and evil tendencies within us must be cast aside, overcome. Being thus equipped and having entered the race, we are to run with patience, looking unto Jesus. He is standing at the end of the racecourse and holds in his hands a prize of immense value and resplendent beauty. With words of joyous welcome, he is ready to bestow “a crown of righteousness” upon everyone who wins or overcomes, “A crown of glory that fades not away.” [1 Peter 5:4].
In 1 Timothy 6:12, Paul presents Timothy as a soldier, and exhorts him to “fight the good fight of faith lay hold on eternal life, whereunto you are also called, and have professed a good profession before many witnesses.”
The believer’s warfare is a righteous one, because it is both lawful and holy. The Captain of a host of warriors has gone before us; has resisted the foe unto blood; has overcome all opposing forces, and stands pledged for our victory if we follow in his footsteps. We are fighting along with our brothers and sister, the children of God, the redeemed, called out from the nations.
When Paul exhorted Timothy to fight the good fight, and to hold fast by sound doctrine, he reminds him of the confession which Jesus Messiah, witnessed before Pilate. He desired Timothy to comfort himself with that confession and to feel sure of victory in every conflict.
When Paul wrote his letter to the Ephesian church, he was chained to a Roman soldier and therefore in close touch with military sights and sounds. The appearance of the Praetorian Guard was familiar to him, and his chains on the other hand became well known throughout their quarters. These conditions with which he was surrounded led him to apply military terms to the believer with a double emphasis in his description of a soldier’s equipment.
He described the belt of sincerity and truth with which the loins are girded for spiritual warfare, the breastplate of righteousness, composed of faith and love, and the sandals with which the feet of Messiah’s soldiers are shod for the universal message of the gospel of peace, the large shield of confident trust, which protects the whole body against which the fiery darts of the enemy fall harmless, and the close fitting helmet for the protection of the head, the hope of salvation to every believer, and finally the most useful and effective weapon, the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.
“Your loins girt about with truth,” this was to the Roman soldier exactly what truth is to the soldier of the Messiah.
Of the Messiah the prophet Isaiah wrote: “And righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins, and faithfulness the girdle of his reins.’’ [Isaiah 11:5] Take the shield of faith wherewith you shall be able to ward off Satan’s fiery and burning arrows intended to inflict pain and to cause sorrow. As an open enemy may ruin a town with fire, so Satan plagues the heart with evil thoughts. As a poisoned arrow may cause painful wounds and days of unbearable suffering, so the fiery darts of the devil will cause pain which no man can express, in comparison with which all bodily sufferings are as nothing. When Satan attacks the saints with his missiles of warfare, instead of killing them he renders them more expert in defending themselves.
The more one practices with a shield or sword the more efficient one becomes in warding off the enemy. So with the sword of the Spirit, the more we use it the more proficient we become in defending the truth of God’s Word. For this reason, Paul exhorted Timothy to “study to show himself approved unto God, a workman that needs not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” [2 Timothy 2:15]
What was a duty for Timothy is no less binding upon any other believer. It requires study to rightly divide and interpret and explain the Scriptures. Divine truth is the instrument with which the Spirit enlightens one’s intellect and the light by which one can see and know Yehovah and things eternal. He who best divides the truth is the ablest and best-instructed teacher and should be the means of bringing many to the Messiah Jesus.
In 2 Timothy 2:3, 4 we read: “You, therefore, endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Messiah. No man that wars entangles himself with the affairs of this life; that he may please him who has chosen him to be a soldier.”
That is to say, he is to suffer hardship with Jesus Messiah; to take his share of suffering, thus intimating that a servant must not be above his master. If we would do his work faithfully we must not turn away from passing through any degree of suffering if called upon to do so. The Messiah wants disciples who have counted the cost and who have decided to forsake everything in order to serve him..
The believer’s service is based upon the same principle as a strict military discipline to which it is often compared in the Scriptures, and which is so necessary to maintain order among soldiers. It may appear harsh and severe at times, but it leads to order, ease, security, and victory. The believing soldier must take his part under the Messiah.
Five traits of character go to make up a valiant soldier: patience, endurance, courage, fidelity and devotion.
We have Yehovah’s word to stimulate us, and the Captain of our salvation who has gone before us leading the way. That being so what more do we need? If prosperity or adversity comes, pain or pleasure, wealth or penury, bereavement or joy, health or sickness, temptation or labor, if Yehovah and the Messiah Jesus are with us all be well and we shall triumph over every foe. We shall live spiritually victorious!
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