Historia

So Great a Cloud of Witnesses

Chris Schlect

he author of Hebrews devoted an entire chapter to recounting the lives of many a great man of faith: strangers and pilgrims who suffered affliction, who were stoned, sawn in two, tortured, and even died in faith without having received what was promised; they were valiant men who turned God's enemies to flight, subdued kingdoms and worked righteousness in spite of severe weaknesses. Of these men, our author declares, "the world was not worthy" (11:38). The writer displays such lives before us as inspirations, prodding us to "lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us" that we may "run with endurance the race that is set before us" (12:1). Our author admits that his list of faithful is very small (he mentions fifteen by name). Of the lives of countless others, he writes, "time would fail me to tell of [them]" (11:32). He finally resorts to a most expansive reference to their number: a great cloud (12:1). Those named in Hebrews 11, and other notables in Scripture, warrant our most diligent study. But we ought to seek out others as well. The centuries have seen thousands of saints who are among the cloud of witnesses which surrounds us. We should read about them, learn their deeds, and be inspired to "run with endurance the race that is set before us" (12:1).

We can be inspired by the saints in Smyrna who in A.D. 155 suffered because they refused to worship the Roman gods and the genius of Caesar. These "atheists" were publicly flogged until their inner organs were exposed, then devoured by beasts. Notable among them was young Germanicus, who moved the crowd by enduring a beast's jaws in patient anticipation of a better life to come. Also consider Polycarp's steadfastness unto death: "The magistrate pressed him, and said, `Swear, and I will release thee; revile Christ.' Polycarp said, `Fourscore and six years have I been serving him, and he hath done me no wrong; how then can I blaspheme my king who saved me?' But again he persisted, and said, `Swear by the genius of Caesar,' Polycarp replied, `If thou vainly supposest that I will swear by the genius of Caesar, as thou sayest, feigning to be ignorant of who I am, hear plainly: I am a Christian!" And so the memory of these saints in Smyrna awakens our shame of entangling sin, and prods us to run the race of faith. ¹

We can be inspired by Hugh Latimer, who once bade tribute to the philandering Henry VIII with an exquisitely printed Bible; with it was an inscribed cloth that called attention to Hebrews 13: "Fornicators and adulterers God will judge." In 1555, Latimer and Dr. Nicholas Ridley met the burning stake of Queen Mary Tudor. The two would have been spared by simply recanting their view of the Lord's supper. They refused. As the fire was lighted at their feet, Latimer assured his comrade: "Be of good comfort, master Ridley, and play the man. We shall this day light such a candle, by God's grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out." ²

We can be inspired by John Knox, who preached at St. Andrews in 1559, though the Archbishop had threatened a salute of musketballs upon his nose if he did so. Fearing the Archbishop, many sought to persuade Knox to delay his sermon. Knox answered them, " . . . to delay to preach on the morrow, unless the body be violently withholden, I cannot of good conscience. . . . As for the fear of danger that may come to me, let no man be solicitous. My life is in the custody of Him whose glory I seek. Therefore I cannot fear their boast or tyranny, that I will cease from doing my duty, when of His mercy He offereth me the occasion. I desire the hand or weapon of no man to defend me. Only do I crave audience. Which, if it be denied here unto me at this time, I must seek further where I may have it." Knox did preach, applying Christ's ejection of the moneychangers to popish corruptions in the church. Those present, including the most prominent persons in the town, were under such conviction that they "did agree to remove all monuments of idolatry, which they also did with expedition."³

We can be inspired by J. Gresham Machen, who, on a different level, valiantly resisted his denomination's fall to modernism. His legendary fight to preserve doctrinal purity in Princeton Seminary at the 1929 General Assembly is a monument to the truth. He later founded a missions board, which eventually led (via unconstitutional proceedings) to his suspension from ministry. He refused to comply with a General Assembly order to tithe to the denomination's own liberal missionaries. His statement at trial read, "I cannot obey the order. . . . I cannot, no matter what any human authority bids me to, support a propaganda that is contrary to the gospel of Christ; I cannot substitute human authority for the authority of the Word of God, and I cannot regard support of the benevolences of the Church as a tax enforced by penalties, but must continue to regard them as a matter of free-will and a thing with regard to which a man is responsible to God alone." In the Machen trial, the PCUSA effectively repudiated the Gospel and the rule of law. Thus, many faithful congregations awakened and severed their ties with that denomination to form a new one, now called the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. ⁴

All too often we lose proper perspective amidst the issues and trials that we face. And so we are charged to be inspired by those of whom the world is not worthy. Treatises and books of devotion have their place, but let us not neglect to take in biographies of faithful men -- of Lollards and Puritans in England, of Huguenots in France, of John Huss, Martin Luther, George Whitefield, Jonathan Edwards, David Livingstone, Charles Spurgeon, Abraham Kuyper, John Murray, Jim Elliot, and hundreds more from ancient times through the present century. We are indeed surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses. Remembering them is food for our souls.