Hebrews 12:1-2
“Therefore let us also, seeing we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising its shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”
Where this sits
Immediately after the long list of people who lived by faith. The cloud of witnesses is that list.
Reflection
The cloud of witnesses is the previous chapter, and knowing that changes the image.
These are not spectators in a stadium watching your performance. They are the people just named — Abraham, Moses, Rahab, and the unnamed ones who were tortured and sawn apart. The word for witness is the one that gave us martyr. They are witnesses in the sense of having testified, not in the sense of watching.
So the encouragement is not that you are being observed. It is that the thing being asked of you has been done before, by people whose names are on record and whose circumstances were worse.
Two things are laid aside, and they are distinguished. Every weight — not sin, just weight. Things that are not wrong but are heavy, and a runner drops them regardless. And the sin which so easily entangles, which is a different problem requiring a different word.
With patience translates the remain-under word again. It is a distance runner's virtue, and the writer picks the metaphor deliberately: not a sprint, not a contest of speed.
And the instruction at the end reorganises everything. Looking to Jesus — the participle suggests looking away from other things in order to look at one. In a chapter that begins with a crowd of heroes, the reader is told where not to look.
- Theme:
- Perseverance
- Book:
- Hebrews