hey that have been called receive the promise of the
eternal inheritance."[333] "We have boldness to enter into the holiest
by the blood of Jesus."[334] In the latter part of the chapter the
writer speaks of his readers as having already attained. They have come
to God, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus, the
Mediator of the new covenant. In the first verse he urges them to run
the race, so as to secure for themselves the blessing. He points them to
Jesus, Who has run the race before them and won the crown, Who sits on
the right hand of God, with authority to reward all who reach the goal.
Both representations are perfectly consistent. Men do enter into
immediate communion with God on earth; but they attain it by effort of
faith.

Such is the aim of faith. The conflict is more complex and difficult to
explain. There is, first of all, a conflict in the preparatory training,
and this is twofold. We have to strive against ourselves and against the
world. We must put away our own grossness,[335] as athletes rid
themselves by severe training of all superfluous flesh. Then we must
also put away from us the sin that surrounds us, that quite besets us,
on all sides,[336] whether in the world or in the Church, as runners
must have the course cleared and the crowd of onlookers that press
around removed far enough to give them the sense of breathing freely and
running unimpeded in a large space. The word "besetting" does not refer
to the special sin to which every individual is most prone. No
thoughtful man but has felt himself encompassed by sin, not merely as a
temptation, but much more as an overpowering force, silent, passive,
closing in upon him on all sides,--a constant pressure from which there
is no escape. The sin and misery of the world has staggered reason and
left men utterly powerless to resist or to alleviate the infinite evil.
Faith alone surmounts these preliminary difficulties of the Christian
life. Faith delivers us from grossness of spirit, from lethargy,
earthliness, stupor. Faith will also lift us above the terrible
pressure of the world's sin. Faith has the heart that still hopes, and
the hand that still saves. Faith resolutely puts away from her whatever
threatens to overwhelm and impede, and makes for herself a large room to
move freely in.

Then comes the actual contest. Our author says "contest."[337] For the
conflict is against evil men. Yet it is, in a true and vital sense, not