<p>11:4 <i>By faith Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, through which he had witness borne to him that he was righteous, God bearing witness in respect to his gifts; and through it he, though being dead, still speaks</i>- As noted on :1, the examples of faith in this chapter relate to faith in the invisible rather than the visible, concrete things of tabernacle ritual; and to faith in the Lord's sacrifice. It was by faith in that future sacrifice that Abel offered a blood offering, because he believed the principle of 9:22, that without shedding of the Lord's blood there could be no remission of sins. God bore witness to this faith by sending fire from Heaven to consume his sacrifice, rather than the vegetable sacrifice of Cain. That witness was not a recognition of his <i>obedience</i> but of his righteousness. Given the strong message of imputed righteousness in chapter 10, we are left to assume that through faith in the Lord's future sacrifice to cover him, Abel was counted righteous just as Abraham was, and just as we are. In that sense he &quot;still speaks&quot; to us by way of example.</p><p>Heb. 11:4 speaks of God bearing witness, giving a verbal testimony, to Abel&rsquo;s sacrifice, and that through that witness Abel is as it were still speaking to us, in that to this day God is still speaking / testifying to that acceptable act of service performed by Abel. Abel, through the account of him in Scripture, &quot;is yet spoken of&quot; (Heb. 11:4 AVmg.) in the Biblical record. Isaiah was prophesying directly to the hypocrites of the first century, according to the Lord in Mk. 7:6 RV. God says that He 'watches over My word to perform it' (Jer. 1:12 RV). Thus God didn't just write the Bible as we write words, and forget it. He remains actively aware of all His words and consciously fulfils them. This is another window into the way in which the word of God can be described as a living word. There is an active quality to the words we read in our Bibles.</p><p>Who we are is in reality our judgment. After death, our works &quot;follow us&quot; to judgment (Rev. 14:13). According to Jewish thought, men's actions followed them as witnesses before the court of God, and this is the idea being picked up here. There is a great emphasis in Hebrews 11 on the way that each man has a &quot;witness&quot;, &quot;testimony&quot; or &quot;report&quot; as a result of his life (Heb. 11:4,5,14,39). Because of this the dead are still spoken for, in that God keeps and knows that testimony, and it speaks for them (Heb. 11:4 AV mg.). They are 'alive', not personally in conscious form, but in the memory and testimony of God.</p>