We don’t just look at the Old Testament. These people inspire us and witness to us about the power of faith, but they do something more: they point us to Someone, whose name is Jesus.
Jesus is the Saviour, the Redeemer. He doesn’t just inspire us to have faith, but He is the One we have faith in. He is the founder (or author) of faith.
This verse uses the name of Jesus the Man, not His title (Christ, or Son of God) to remind us that the man Christ Jesus ran the race of faith before us. He led the way. He trusted His Father from His mother’s womb (Psalm 22:9). He believed His Father in the wilderness and rejected temptation (Matthew 4:4). He trusted His Father in the Garden, and committed to do His will (Matthew 27:39). He committed His Spirit to the Father as He died on the cross (Luke 23:46).
Jesus also gives us faith. He died so that we would be free to believe and no longer dead in our sins (Ephesians 2:1-10).
He is also the “perfecter of our faith.” He is the One who fulfilled the promises in the Old Testament that all those heroes saw from a distance. Those promises are now fulfilled for us – the Saviour HAS come. He also perfects our faith in the sense that He takes our weak faith, and He presents it to the Father as perfect. Our doubts and fears are washed away and covered in His spotless righteousness.
So we can run this race of life – the race that Jesus ran – because (even though we feel weak) Jesus runs with us, Jesus empowers our faith, Jesus covers our stumbling, and Jesus is the prize.
The best is yet to come 