Heb. 12:1 There­fore, since we are sur­rounded by so great a cloud of wit­nesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with per­se­ver­ance the race that is set before us

Is there in the ‘heav­enly sta­dium’ — look­ing down on Chris­tians still in the race? Who are they that wit­ness the deeds of Chris­tians? Most often the above verse is inter­preted that either the angels or the departed saints, the ‘Church of God’ watch Chris­tians from heaven.

Well, this is a per­fect exam­ple of tak­ing a verse out of context.

The verse starts with the term ‘there­fore’, that is, this points to what was said before and we must read the pre­ced­ing chap­ter to cor­rectly under­stand what is being said. Chap­ter 11 is about how var­i­ous past heroes tes­ti­fied about their faith through what they did. The tes­ti­mony was to those around them, that is, to the world, not to some kind of ‘heav­enly sta­dium’. The chap­ter con­cludes like this:

Heb. 12:32 And what more shall I say? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Sam­son, Jeph­thah, of David and Samuel and the prophets– 33 who through faith con­quered king­doms, enforced jus­tice, received promises, stopped the mouths of lions, 34 quenched rag­ing fire, escaped the edge of the sword, won strength out of weak­ness, became mighty in war, put for­eign armies to flight. 35 Women received their dead by res­ur­rec­tion. Some were tor­tured, refus­ing to accept release, that they might rise again to a bet­ter life. 36 Oth­ers suf­fered mock­ing and scourg­ing, and even chains and impris­on­ment. 37 They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword; they went about in skins of sheep and goats, des­ti­tute, afflicted, ill-treated– 38 of whom the world was not wor­thy– wan­der­ing over deserts and moun­tains, and in dens and caves of the earth. 39 And all these, though well attested by their faith, did not receive what was promised, 40 since God had fore­seen some­thing bet­ter for us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect.

Deeds evi­denc­ing faith? Yes, just as James (aka Jacov) says,

Jas 2:17 Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead in itself. 18 Yes, a man will say, “You have faith, and I have works.” Show me your faith from your works, and I by my works will show you my faith. 19 You believe that God is one. You do well. The demons also believe, and shud­der. 20 But do you want to know, vain man, that faith apart from works is dead? 21 Wasn’t Abra­ham our father jus­ti­fied by works, in that he offered up Isaac his son on the altar? 22 You see that faith worked with his works, and by works faith was per­fected; 23 and the Scrip­ture was ful­filled which says, “Abra­ham believed God, and it was accounted to him as right­eous­ness;” and he was called the friend of God. 24 You see then that by works, a man is jus­ti­fied, and not only by faith. 25 In like man­ner wasn’t Rahab the pros­ti­tute also jus­ti­fied by works, in that she received the mes­sen­gers, and sent them out another way? 26 For as the body apart from the spirit [GK ‘pneuma’ — cor­rect trans­la­tion: ‘the body with­out breath’ or ‘the per­son who doesn’t breathe’] is dead, even so faith apart from works is dead.

It is clear that Jacov is reflect­ing on the very same mat­ter as the writer of Hebrews. It is the world around us that needs to see the faith of the faith­ful so that their faith(fulness — sorry, faith is not head knowl­edge but trust and deeds together) may be recognised.

The other mat­ter I’d like to com­ment on, there is no such a thing as ‘Church of God’. Don’t you think that the term today ‘church’ car­ries a very dif­fer­ent mean­ing to what the term orig­i­nally meant? For this rea­son I like to avoid using it when talk­ing about bib­li­cal mat­ters. The mean­ing of the term is ‘assem­bly’ or ‘con­gre­ga­tion’, just as we see the assem­bling of the Jew­ish peo­ple on the pages of the Tanakh. The ‘con­gre­ga­tion of God’ does not only con­sist of those who pray the sin­ners’ prayer and believe all the check­point churches ask you to sub­scribe to, but it con­sists of those peo­ple who enter into covenant rela­tion­ship with God — whether through the Adamic, Noahide, Abra­hamic, Mosaic or renewed covenants, and life faith­fully. What counts is faith­ful life, not head knowl­edge and checkpoints.