THE RACE AND THE CROWN
By ROBERT GOVETT, M. A.
No
human effort (it is said) was both so short and so
violent as the Greek footrace. Around the stadium, or course, rose an
amphitheatre of white marble, like the terraces of a palace, seated with 'a cloud of witnesses.' Tier above tier;* he who
'acted as herald,' to use Paul's phrase (1 Cor. 9: 27),
marshalled the lists, explained the rules, and dismissed the runners by
trumpet-blast; all starting 'scratch,' the athletes bent forward - "stretching forward to the things that are before"
(Phil. 3: 13) - to catch the fullest
possible momentum: then followed the rush, and (in the long race) weary lap
after weary lap; until at last the 'mark,' or 'goal,' was in sight, where the judges sat: then, as
the victor burst past the mark, the race was over, all other runners being 'disapproved' ; and the winner, crowned with a wreath
of pine and banqueted, received the homage of an entire nation. "Know ye not that they which run in a race all run,
but ONE receiveth the prize?" (1 Cor. 9: 24).
[* "Wembley accommodates 126,000 spectators;
but a stadium in
Now
the Holy Ghost, not once but many times, emphasises this as a picture of the
short, sharp struggle of the Christian race. "So run," says Paul (1 Cor. 9: 24) to the
whole Church of God; for runners do not march, they race: "so run," run
in such a way that, run as the few run, run as only the winner runs: "in order that YE may attain" - have the prize
deliberately in view: "it is not enough merely to
run - all run; but as there is only one who is victorious, so you must run, not
with the slowness of the many, but with the energy of the one" (Dean
Stanley). We have no option but to seek
the highest.
Now
the Holy Spirit reveals conditions for success in the race; and the first is a
careful self-preparation. "Every man that striveth in the games" - that enters the lists
- "is temperate in all things"
(1 Cor. 9: 25).
It is obvious that an untrained runner has little or no chance against a
disciplined athlete, hardened, schooled, fit. Here are the actual
directions from an old Greek book for the ten month's training: - "There must be orderly
living, on spare food; abstain from confections; make a point of exercising at
the appointed time, in heat and in cold; nor drink cold water, nor wine at
random; give thyself to the training master as to a physician, and then enter
the contests." The athlete thus trains to prolong his wind,
to harden his biceps, and to produce that which the Greek so loved - a perfect
human: we, to produce a perfect saint - as developed in spirit and character,
as he in muscle and frame. "The abstinence
of the athletes did not relate only to criminal enjoyments, but also to
gratification’s in themselves lawful; so the Christian's self-denial should
bear, not only on guilty pleasures, but on every habit, on every enjoyment,
which, without being vicious, may involve a loss of time or a diminution of
moral force" (Godet). Even the gossamer band of silk in the trousering above the knee (a runner in cross-country
championships has told me) he had to discard: a 'weight'
(Heb. 12: 1) can be fatal.
Observance
of the rules is a second vital condition of success. "If a man contend in the games, he is
not crowned, except he have contended LAWFULLY" (2 Tim. 2: 5) - that is, according to the rules of
the running: he may run magnificently; but if lawlessly, he is instantly
disqualified. "You may be making great
strides, but you are running outside the track." (Augustine). The New Testament is our racing manual: it
tells us exactly what to do, and what to avoid: we are not at liberty to
invent our own rules, or construct our own holiness; every rule is in the Book,
and every rule is essential for the prize. "Ye were running
well: who did hinder you that ye should
not obey the truth?" (Gal.
5: 7); that is, swift running is
obeying the Holy Scriptures. We seek the glory; but first, what
secures the glory. "I press on toward the goal unto
the prize" (Phil. 3: 14):
“the mark, or goal, is perfect holiness; the prize is
glory, the crown of holiness" (Godet).*
[* "If
it could be proved, after the contest, that the victorious combatants had
contended unlawfully, or unfairly, they were deprived of the prize and driven
with disgrace from the games" (Dean Alford).]
But
self-mastery abides the supreme condition for success. "I therefore so run, as not uncertainly"; that is,
if I fulfil the conditions, I
shall not be supplanted (as I might be in a human footrace) by some fleeter
runner; every believer is sure
of the prize if only he fulfils the
conditions: "so fight I, as not beating the
air "; my fisticuffs are no feints, but I land every blow; "but I buffet my body" - bruise it black
and blue, make it livid, every blow striking home (Ellicott) - "and bring it into bondage"
- lead it as a slave (1 Cor.
9: 27). Here is disclosed our
most dangerous enemy, "the flesh with its
affections and lusts"; my blows, says Paul, are so aimed as to
cover my adversary - and that adversary, my own body - with bruises, and so
lead it captive. He discovers, by self-examination, his besetting sins,
and he lands his blows there: we
must learn to know our weak points as well as Satan knows them. "I fatigue my body, by the incessant and exhausting
labours to which I condemn it" (Dean Stanley). Paul was no ascetic, no monk; but, while a
nourished body is the most effective instrument for God we shall ever have, a
pampered body is a lost race. For the race is no splendid spurt, it is a
dogged drudgery; it is lost by either
self-confidence or self-despair: the real failures in life are those who
surrender before the sun goes
down. "The only way to keep pace with God
is to run at full speed" (General
W. Booth).
Paul
now points out that, as the difficulties are incalculably greater and more
subtle in the spiritual race, so the prizes are incomparably richer, and the
losses more terrible. "Now they do it to receive a corruptible crown"
- a garland of olive or bay or parsley or pine, that hardly faded sooner than
the athlete's glory itself; "but we an incorruptible";
a never-fading wreath, as Peter calls it (1 Pet. 5:
4). So the extraordinarily potent
lesson here revealed is that self-denial is only pleasure postponed.
"This," said King Edward to Cannon Duckworth in the disrobing room after the
Coronation, "is one of the happiest days, if not the
happiest, I ever spent." Earthly crowns are not always even
transient joys. "The only crown I have ever
worn," said the Austrian
Emperor Charles II., who died since the Great War, "was a crown of thorns." No crown is ever applied to a
believer in Scripture except for achievement, never for inheritance - stephanos never diadema ; (diadema
is applied only to Christ, (Rev. 19: 12, and
Antichrist, Rev. 13:1); and it is curious
that, exactly as five victor-wreaths were given in Greece for five totally
distinct achievements - leaping, throwing, racing, boxing and wrestling - so
five crowns, and five only, are held forth for spiritual athleticism’s -
the crown of joy for soul-winning (1 Thess. 2: 19), the crown of glory for church
oversight (1 Pet. 5: 4), the crown of
incorruption for sanctity (1 Cor. 9: 25), the crown of righteousness for
vigilance (2 Tim. 4: 8), and the crown
of life for martyrdom (Rev. 2: 10).
These will blaze when the sun has gone out forever.
Paul
closes with one of the supreme warnings of Scripture. "'Lest by any means after that I have acted the herald to
others, I MYSELF' - not my works
only, but mySELF - 'should be REJECTED'
[as unworthy of the crown and the prize (Ellicott)]."
As bishop Ellicott says :- "Not reprobate: the
doctrinal deduction thus becomes, to some extent, modified; still the serious
fact remains that the Apostle had before him the possibility of loosing that
which he was daily preaching to others: as yet he counted not himself to have
attained (Phil. 3: 12); that blessed assurance was for the closing period of a
faithful life (2 Tim. 4: 7)." The runner will never be disowned as a son, but he
can be deeply disapproved as a servant : a
backslider may be in the race, but he is not in the running.*
Full of years, and laden with victories,
Paul - the Paul who never doubted his [eternal] salvation after the Damascene vision, and who has
crouched the believer's eternal safety
in the most Calvinistic language in the Bible - has not ceased to dread the
flesh, and still trembles for his crown. No man who misses the
approbation of Christ obtains no other, not even his own; and meanwhile, as we
grow older, we find the flesh no less carnal, the world no less subtle, and the
Devil no less Satanic than they always were. "Hold fast that which thou
hast, that no one take thy crown" (Rev.
3: 11): yours already, hypothetically; yours
certainly, if you run to a finish as you are running now; but forfeitable, if
you slacken to a present inferior in the race.
[* "We cannot consider 'receiving the
prize' to imply salvation generally, for this is even possible where wood,
straw, and stubble have been built up; but that it intends the highest degree
of bliss, conditional upon faith and the advance in sanctification"
(Olhausen).
Hence the importance of Scriptural doctrine, - (the superstructure the
believer builds upon the only foundation, Jesus Christ) - and the need of grace
and back-bone to stand against false doctrine, so rampant within the
So
we summarise some final points. (1) No criminal, no slave, only the
freeborn Greek could enter the lists: so God's race
is only for the re-born: the race starts at the foot of the Cross, and conversion
puts us in the lists. (2) The racer who fouls -
or 'bores' - a fellow-runner is at once disqualified. Carpenter, an American at the Olympic
Games, cut out the Englishman Hartell, and instantly lost the race. (3)
Unbelief is a strychnine which paralyzes: if we
imagine there is no race, it is certain we shall win no prize. (4)
We should never doubt our salvation: we should never assume our prize. When in 1923 Sullivan swam the Channel on his seventh attempt, he said:- "Every beating I got
made me the more determined to do it, and I have trained hard year after year
for it." (5) A trainer of
prize-winners may himself lose the
prize. (6) The nearer we approach
the goal, the lonelier the race.
(7) Let us remember the Cloud of Witnesses. The eyes of God are upon us; the eyes of Christ know
our works, and rejoice in our running: the eyes of the holy angels are watching
struggling Jobs and budding Pauls; the eyes of the
malignant Powers are always studying us; the eyes of the world are never off
us; and, at the goal, the whole Church will know exactly how we ran. What
an amphitheatre!
So
we cheer each other on as, to panting breast and trembling limbs, the goal
rises on the horizon. Bishop Wordsworth beautifully suggests that from
the Greek word here for 'prize,' we get, through
the Latin and Italian, our word 'Bravo': so we love to cheer each drawn, white,
dusty face, and together seek the Bravo of the returning Lord. The last
lap used to be called 'the sob': no cross-country winner ever breasts the tape
without bleeding feet.
Carry me over the long, last mile,
Man of
"I have finished," (the stadium), Paul cries at
last, when the two hundred yards had vanished under his victorious feet; "henceforth there is laid
up for me THE CROWN" (2 Tim. 4:
8); or, in the dying words of Payson,
- "The battle is fought! the
battle is fought! and the victory is won for ever!"
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NOTES ON THE CHRISTIAN STADIUM
1 CORINTHIANS 9: 24.
This
is my aim in all I do: but inasmuch as many run in a race, many reach the goal,
but only one receives the prize, - I, as an Apostle, run my course, and you
must run yours, as each to labour not to be rejected at last, but to gain the
glorious and incorruptible prize. - Dean Alford.
The
one combatant who received the prize did so as the result of great effort,
strenuous and persevering. For neither apathy nor weariness were
compatible with success. Indifference kills Christian life. The
half-hearted go not out far from the starting-point. Many have
earnestness enough only to 'enter' for the
race and fight; as soon as they have 'entered,' they think all is done.
To be amongst the runners is not enough; we must exert our powers; we must call
into activity all our energies. "Strive [agonise] to enter in - [to the
1 CORINTHIANS 9: 25.
The
racer must keep to the rules of the course, and confine himself
within the limits of the stadium. Speed will stand him in no stead
without this; and though he may reach the goal, he will not receive the
prize. And it is so with the Christian racer. He is not at liberty
to choose his ground, to invent a short road, or to seek an easy road there: he
must keep in the way of God's commandments. We are to be temperate in all
things - in our enjoyments, our grief’s, and most lawful and permitted
affections. There is no prize for him who stops half-way. - D. Moore,
M.A.
Some
cannot win because they carry too much weight. "How hardly shall
a rich man enter into the kingdom of
heaven!" Another class start well, and they run very fast at
first, but at last they leap over the rails and go quite out of the course
altogether. - C. H. Spurgeon.
1 CORINTHIANS 9: 26.
There
is not a member or a nerve in the body but it is capable of being a great sin
or a high virtue. Every part admits of sanctification. All are
given for a purpose, and that purpose is to glorify God. What we have to
do is not to destroy anything, but to guide it - not to despise, but to elevate
- not to cast off as an enemy, but to employ as a servant. - J. Vaughan,
M.A.
1 CORINTHIANS 9: 27.
This
fear of the Apostle's was no chimerical (i.e., an 'unfounded, unreasoned and
imaginary') one. Actual fact [named immediately after] sustained his
solicitude. Who was the herald of the host of
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