Hebrews 12:1: “Cloud of witnesses”

The more I think of Heb 12:1, the more the “faith alone” view of Protestants look so unbiblical to me.

Try reading the whole of Hebrews 11 and see if you’ll get a different impression, but for me the chapter speaks of everything except “faith alone.” All the saints- great and humble- mentioned there, all did something more than just have faith (the kind which finds expression in today’s Protestant exhortation: “Accept Jesus as your personal Savior, and you’re saved once for all).

David lost his justification when he sinned with Bathsheba, which means that had David died before Nathan rebuked him, David would have died in the state of sin, and all his prior justifications, and even his faith, would be of no help to him.

And yet it was only his justification which was lost – his faith remained, which belies the Protestant view that all that’s needed is for one to make that act of faith- accepting Jesus as personal Lord and Savior, and that’s it, he’s saved. It was only after admitting to his sin and begging God for forgiveness (which had to wait for Nathan’s reminder) that David once again recovered his justification. (Protestants would explain this by claiming that all David lost was the “joy of his salvation,” not his salvation itself, as if there can be any joy other than that brought about by salvation.)

Or look at Noah. “Warned by God concerning events as yet unseen, (Noah) took heed and constructed an ark . . .by this he became an heir to the righteousness which comes by faith.” It took Noah 120 years to build the Ark, a long time within which to doubt, after all, a flood would seem to be the last thing that would happen amidst all the carousing around him. To me that sounds so unlike the instant salvation of Protestants.

Or take Abel. To me it seems unlikely that all Abel did was to make an act of faith similar to what today’s Protestants urge, and voila, he’s saved. It strikes me as more likely that God was pleased of Abel because of Abel’s generosity: everytime Abel chose the animals for his sacrifice, he invariably chose the best. Always, nothing but the best for God. I can imagine him going through his flock (he was a shepherd), and seeking out the best. While doing so, I can imagine the devil whispering to him “Nahh, not that one,” but Abel would always end up choosing the best for his sacrifice.

We can go over each one of Chapter 11’s list- Abraham, Sarah, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Moses’ parents, Rahab the harlot, Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, Samuel, and perhaps Benaiah, Dan, Elijah, Hezekiah,Judith, the widow of Zerephath, Elisha, Zechariah, Naboth, Jeremiah, Isaiah (who, it is said, was sawn in two), the Three Young Men (Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah), and others. In the event that I find myself in heaven some day I hope, I would probably ask Hananiah what made him get to heaven, I doubt if he would ever say “One day in 606 B.C. I repented of my sins, and accepted God as Savior, and that’s it, I was saved.”