Today was a great day of worship. I certainly appreciate having Jim Moore come and lead worship for us. I’m looking forward to his ministry among us.
Hebrews 12:1-3 is a very familiar passage to us. I hope these insights might help us understand it better.
The cloud of witnesses: In 12:1, the writer of Hebrews refers to the great cloud of witnesses that surround the believer running the race. Who are these witnesses and what are they doing?
The witnesses are the exemplars of the faith that the author of Hebrews mentioned in Hebrews 11. The entire chapter of Hebrews 11 built up to the crescendo that we see in 12:1-3. If we remember the context of suffering and persecution experienced by the audience of Hebrews, the faithful saints of the Old Testament time period proved that one can persevere the crises of the earthly realm when their confidence was fixed upon the God whose promises are certain.
It is tempting to look at the cloud of witnesses in Hebrews 12:1 as spectators of those competing in the present. Drawing from the Greco-Roman athletic context, an athlete would often compete in an amphitheater with a crowd of spectators cheering him on toward the prize. If taken this way, the Old Testament witnesses extolled in chapter 11 would make up a heavenly throng encouraging the Christian in the present. They would be cheerleaders as such, watching their successors as they run the race they previously had run. However, these witness are not so much spectators encouraging us on, but they are more like examples to which the suffering Christian looks for encouragement. They have shown by their lives a devout faithfulness to God despite the circumstances they faced. They endured hardship and remain loyal to God. If they could do it then, the writer of Hebrews suggests, so also can the believers of his generation. He exhorts them to look to these faithful examples as an encouragement to remain faithful themselves.
Everything that hinders and the sin that entangles: The author of Hebrews also exhorts his audience to throw off the sin that so easily entangles. He uses the Greek word ongkos to describe the hindrance of the runner competing in a race. Ongkos means can refer to any kind of mass or weight, heaviness, or even bodily fat. The reference here is that a runner will divest himself of all superfluous weight (heavy objects, clothing, even excess body weight) in order to win the prize. Likewise, the word for “entangle” used in reference to sin refers to something that clings so closely that it impede movement and progress. Likewise sin and distractions (even if in other contexts are permissible and good) hinder a believer from competing at a high level on the race that God has marked out for us in Christ.
The pioneer and perfecter of faith: The writer of Hebrews refers to Jesus as the “author and perfecter of our faith”. We might understand “author” here in the sense of pioneer. Jesus has led all the faithful, even from the very beginning, along the path of faith. In His incarnation and passion, he served as a personal example for believers who come after Him. It would be impossible for us as followers of Christ to follow a path different from that blazed by our Lord before us. It should not surprise us that the only way we will be able to follow faithfully that course is if we follow His lead. Likewise, Jesus is the perfecter of faith. He brought perfection to faith through the cross. He is faith’s conclusion, when as Paul says our faith will be made sight.
