HEBREWS 11
1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
"faith" - Gk. pistis, assurance, belief; thus the conviction of that which is understood in regard to the plan and purpose of the Deity. Faith is a paradox. It provides the means to see the invisible in the present! It allows one possessing it to see beyond the horizon of life, and to make the future a present reality; to live as though in the presence of the Great King (cp. 2Cor. 12:3).
The Christadelphian Expositor
Paul gives the best definition of faith extant.
He says, "faith is a confident anticipation (upostasiv) of things hoped for, a full persuasion of events not seen" (Heb. 11:1). This is the faith without which, he tells us afterwards, God is not, and cannot by any possibility be pleased. It is a faith which lays hold of the past and the future.
The person who possesses it, knows what is testified concerning Jesus by the apostles, and is fully persuaded of its truth; he also knows the exceeding great and precious promises which God has made concerning things to come, and he confidently anticipates the literal fulfilment of them.
Laying hold of these things with a firm faith, he acquires a mode of thinking and a disposition which are estimable in the sight of God; and being like Abraham in these particulars, he is prepared by induction into Christ, to become a son of the father of the faithful, and of the friend of God.
This faith comes by studying the Scriptures, as it is written, "faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God" (Rom. 10:17). This word contains "the testimony of God." When this testimony is understood, and allowed to make its own impression in "a good and honest heart," faith establishes itself there. There is no more mystery in this, than how one man comes to believe another guilty of a crime when he is made acquainted with all the testimony in the case.
The ability to believe lies in a sound understanding, a candid disposition, and knowledge of the testimony of God. Where there is ignorance of this there can be no faith. It is as impossible for a man ignorant of God's word to have faith, as it is for a man to believe another is guilty of an alleged crime who knows nothing at all about the matter. But, one may say, there are multitudes who believe in Christ who are very ignorant of the Scriptures. Yes, they believe in Christ as Turks believe in Mohammed. But this is not the faith defined by Paul. The mere belief that Jesus is the Son of God is not believing in Him. To believe in Him is to believe what God testifies concerning Him.
The faith of the "religious world" is like a stool with only one leg. It professes to believe in Jesus, but it is ignorant, and therefore faithless, of the message He was sent to deliver to Israel. His message had relation to "the things hoped for"--to the things of the kingdom which the God of heaven will set up upon the ruin of the kingdoms which now exist. Men are invited to believe in the Messenger of the Covenant, and in the message which unfolds the things of covenant.
This is an important intimation, importing that no religious services are acceptable to God which are not predicated on the belief of His Promises.
Elpis Israel 1.4.
Now, faith comes by hearing the word of God (Rom. 10:17); in other words, it is the belief of God's testimony concerning things to come, which are not seen (Heb. 11:1); and without which, it is impossible to please Him (verse 6). When a man is renewed by the truth, he is renewed by the spirit, and not before. There is no such thing in the Scriptures as a renewed ignorant man. Ignorance of the testimony of God, and regeneration, are utterly incompatible.
The truth is the purifier to those only who understand and obey it (1 Peter 1:22) and there is no moral purity, or sanctification of spirit before God, without it. It is only believers of the truth, then, who can be the subjects of a regeneration by being submerged "in the laver of the water." When they come out of this, they have been "washed, sanctified, and justified in the name of the Lord Jesus by the spirit of God" (1 Cor. 6:11).
The truth to be believed is the gospel of the kingdom and name of Jesus Christ (Acts 8:12). When this is understood, and heartily received, it produces a disposition of mind, such as was in Abraham and Jesus, and which is called repentance. Believers, so disposed, are the begotten of God, and have become as little children.
They believe the exceeding great and precious promises," together with the things testified concerning the sufferings and resurrection of Jesus. He fell into a deep sleep; and, while thus unconscious and insensible, His side was opened by a spear, and forthwith rushed blood and water (John 19:33-34). Being awoke out of His sleep, He was built up a spiritual body, flesh and bones; and, by His ascension, presented to the Father as the federal representative of His ecclesia.
This is the aggregate of those, who, believing these things, have been introduced into Christ through the laver of the water; according to the saying of the Scriptures, "ye are all the children of God in Christ Jesus through the faith. For as many as have been baptized into Christ have entered into Christ," . * * * ye are all one in Christ Jesus. And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and HEIRS according to the promise" (Gal. 3:26-29).
Elpis Israel 1.2.
An anchor for the soul
...the highest kind or form of faith is made the basis of acceptance with God: so that "without faith," as defined by Paul in Heb. 11:1.,
"it is impossible to please God."
And by consulting that definition it will be seen, that this faith is a firm conviction of promises understood; for ῾υποστασις, rendered "substance," signifies firm, confident anticipation, &c.; and ελεγκος rendered "evidence," signifies whatever serves to convince, which implies intelligence; while "things hoped for and unseen" are matters of testimony and promise.
It is evident, therefore, that the ignorant, however pious, cannot have this faith; but it is
"he that hears the word of the kingdom, and understandeth,"
that bears the fruit unto eternal life.
Herald of the Kingdom and Age to Come, Mar 1857
4 By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts: and by it he being dead yet speaketh.
This made Cain fierce and sullen. He refused to "bring of the firstlings of the flock, and of the fat thereof." He did not believe in its necessity, having no faith in the remission of sins by the shedding of sacrificial blood (Heb. 9:22; 10:4-14); nor in the fulfilment of God's promise concerning Him, who, being "bruised in the heel," or slain as Abel's accepted lamb, should arise, and "bruise the serpent's head," in destroying the works of sin (1 John 3:8).
This is what Cain did not believe; and his faithlessness expressed itself in neglecting to walk in "the way of the Lord." Nevertheless, he continued "a professor of religion;" for "he brought of the fruit of the ground an offering to the Lord." But the Lord paid no respect to him or his offering; because, in neglecting the sacrifice, he had set up his judgment against God; and in being faithless had in effect treated God as a liar; for, saith the Scripture, "he that believeth not God hath made Him a liar" (1 John 5:10).
But Cain's sullen anger against God could only wound himself. His refusal to obey Him could not injure the Most High. He insulted God with his "will-worship and voluntary humility" (Col. 2:18), and convicted himself as an evil-doer.
Elpis Israel 1.4
Faith, then, in the Seed of the woman, first as a sacrifice for sin, wounded to death by His enemies, and afterwards the destroyer of the sin-power, in connexion with the sacrifice of animals as representative of the bruising of His heel--was the ground of their acceptance with the Lord God.
It was the way of life. If they walked with God in this way, they would be as pleasing to him as Enoch afterwards was, who was translated about 57 years after Adam's death. It was the way which was corrupted by the antediluvians, and although the sacrifices have been interrupted, the faith and hope which gained celebrity and commendation to Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Moses, and a cloud of other witnesses, comprehended substantially the same things, but less in detail than in that faith which was preached by the apostles as the gospel of the kingdom and name of Christ, for the justification of all who should believe.
The things believed by Abel, as compared with the faith preached on Pentecost, were as the acorn to the oak. The gospel of the kingdom in the name of Jesus was the revelation in full of the things communicated in the beginning, and afterwards more considerably amplified in the promises made to the fathers of the people of Israel.
When the saints are all gathered into the kingdom, they will not find themselves in an unexpected situation. They will all be there by virtue of believing the same things; though some, contemporary with the later history of the world, will have had the advantage of more abounding testimony. Their sins will have been covered upon the same principle--by the raiment of righteousness derived from the sacrifice, by faith in whose blood they had been cleansed.
There is no true religion without faith, nor any true faith without the belief of the truth. Now, although a Scriptural faith is the scarcest thing among men, it is exceedingly simple, and by no means difficult to acquire, when it is sought for aright.
Elpis Israel 1.5
5 By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and was not found, because God had translated him: for before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God.
It is an extraordinary fact that Elijah alone of the prophets (Enoch, the seventh from Adam, excepted) should not die. Paul's comment in Enoch's case probably furnishes the explanation of the case of Elijah.
The one feature specially visible in Elijah's life is the one he referred to when excusing himself for having fled from the face of Jezebel :
"I have been very jealous for the Lord God of Hosts: because the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword."
God is jealous of His honour, though full of compassion and kindness. We may therefore understand how pleasing to Him would be Elijah's undiluted and untiring zeal on His behalf. For the same reason we may understand how God would feel at liberty (as we might express it) to exempt Elijah from the common lot of men, in translating him like Enoch, " that he should not see death."
The offensiveness of sin, which brings death, is its violation of the divine supremacy, and therefore of the divine honour. Its antidote, in the sense of allowing God to forgive, is the recognition, the assertion, the vindication of that divine supremacy. This is what was done in the condemnation of sin in the crucifixion of Christ. It is what, in another form, " pleased God" in the case of Elijah, and admitted of his removal without death.
Bro Roberts - Ministry of the prophets
6 But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.
A babe cannot do this, and, therefore, no operation of which a babe is the passive automaton can be anything but disgusting and blasphemous before God.
...The "one faith," the "one hope" and the "one baptism," are a personal affair; no one can believe, or hope, or be baptized, for another
... But this blasphemous farce [Infant sprinkling] is not played only by these sons of the whip; it is substantially played off by all orders and degrees of the Beast's worshippers. All the royal family, nobility, gentry and clergy of England, have, by proxy in rhantism and personally in confirmation, vowed to do the same things. Yet all the world knows that their vows are unheeded and unperformed; for what else are these orders than the embodied "pomp and glory of the world" reveling in "the sinful desires of the flesh" by which they are led!
...The effect of all this upon papist, protestant and dissenter, is the inwrought supposition that they are baptized members of Christ's church, and heirs of everlasting life! This is what Paul terms a strong delusion and believing a lie (2 Thess. 2:11).
They have substituted "the Sign of the Beast" for "the Sign of Christ" - or Rhantism of Babes for the Baptism of Adults, enlightened by "the truth as it is in Jesus;" so that the whole rhantized world is unbaptized ... (Eph.4:18).
Eureka 13.33.
8 By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went.
How practical was Abraham's faith?
Imagine a man of substance, with numerous friends, possessed of a large retinue of servants, starting suddenly off without being able to say whither be was bound (Heb. xi. 8).
Abraham's children walk in Abraham's steps. They obey God, though often unable to see where the command will lead them. Abraham's children of today have received a call. They have been commanded to "come out"- to leave (in a moral sense) their idolatrous kinsfolk, and to confess themselves to be "strangers and pilgrims on the earth."
They have been exhorted to pass the time of their sojourning here in fear. If faithful they exhibit their father's mind; they suffer themselves to be led by God and recognise that their surroundings are only temporary - that at any moment they may be summoned to leave them.
Such a disposition is acceptable to God, and He is not ashamed to be called the God of those who possess it (Heb. xi. 16). Will He be ashamed to call Himself our God?
Bro AT Jannaway
The Christadelphian, May 1887.
Abraham and Sarah
So finely was their faith matched and mirrored that these two examples could be the sum of the whole. Faith seen in a woman and a man, faith seen in overcoming inadequacy and in transcending incredulity, the one requiring inward surrender, the other demanding external obedience, and both gloriously outworked to the honour of the God whom they worshipped and served.
It was not difficult to see how their example might be set forth as the benchmark for all their children to follow.
Even now, after countless generations have passed, we stand in awe of their faith, so simple, so total, so grand. Faced with the story of these two who confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth, and walked accordingly, we realise that our own lives do not measure to the same standard of faith. We still stand in need of absorbing their story, and capturing their attitude.
But if we can comport our lives more closely with theirs, showing the same spirit, walking the same road, and serving the same God, then their blessing will also be ours - the providential care and guidance of God who sees and knows, and who delights in the faithful submission of His servants.
Row completely encouraging it is to see this spirit in both the father and mother of the faithful, to know that whatever our trial of faith, whatever our burden of care, they have walked the road before us.
Nothing we shall endure is likely to exceed the breadth of their experiences, and in this we can be comforted, as we follow after in the way. There is no better example for saints in general and husbands and wives in particular to emulate.
Bro Roger Lewis
11 Through faith also Sara herself received strength to conceive seed, and was delivered of a child when she was past age, because she judged him faithful who had promised.
So that Isaac stands before us as the prototype of the children of promise. They are a divine development by a divine agency, as the result of a divine purpose by the power of faith in the divine performance. As Paul said to the Galatians:
"we brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise" (Gal 4:28).
They are of the promise, and by the promise, that is, God promises them, and by His promise, begets them. As James says,
"Of His own will begat He us by the Word of His mouth"
which is a word of promise.
"We are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus" (Gal 3:26).
The kernel of the whole idea lies here, that a divine purpose underlies the history of human life upon earth, and that this is the truly governing element in the situation. Man may plan, and theorize, and work, but he can effect nothing against the purpose of God. The purpose of God will prevail.
Paul further illustrates it by reference to Jacob and Esau, whose respective places were marked out before they were born
"that the purpose of God, according to election, might stand, not of works (that is, not of human contrivings or accomplishment), but of Him that calleth" (Rom. 9:11).
There is a purpose of God according to election. Some people see Calvinism here, but Calvinism gives us only half the thought, and by leaving out the second half, turns the first into a lie. Calvinism makes the election, or selection, an act of sovereign prerogative without reference to fitness, whereas Bible election is always according to fitness. God foresees and foreordains, but always in harmony with all His will.
Jacob was a God-fearing man, a man of faith, whatever his personal frailties were. Esau was a mere man of nature - lusty, strong, and ingenious, but with no fear of God before his eyes. God had regard to the one character and not to the other. God's foreordination did not place an Esau in Jacob's place. It always put the right man in the right place. Paul refers in further illustration to Pharaoh, and to God's statement to him by Moses:
"For this same purpose have I raised thee up that I might show My power in thee,"
adding,
"Therefore hath He mercy on whom He will have mercy and whom He will He hardeneth" -in reference to which, he immediately anticipates a natural rejoinder:
"Thou wilt say then unto me, why doth He yet find fault? For who hath resisted His will?"
He disposes of this by asking on what ground a thing formed can say to Him that formed it, why hast thou made me thus?
"Hath not the potter power over the clay of the same lump, to make one vessel unto honour and another unto dishonor? This is absolutely final
"We are the clay, and Thou our potter" (Isa. 64:8).
Until a man accept this position, he is not in a state of true reason.
"God hath made all things for Himself, yea even the wicked for the day of His power."
The untutored mind cannot realise this, but is enslaved by a feeling that things exist for man.
Seasons 2.43
13 These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.
INHERITING THE PROMISES
The verb "inherit" is here used indefinitely, and may be past, present, or future, or all together at the same time, according to the nature of the subject. Supposing, therefore, the allusion is to the promise of eternal life and the kingdom of God, it settles nothing as to the question when these are possessed: the scope of the tense would have to be governed by the facts of the case. But the context shows that the allusion was to a past occurrence.
Paul immediately adds, "For when God made promise to Abraham, because He could swear by no greater, He sware by Himself, saying, Surely blessing, I will bless thee, and multiplying, I will multiply thee; and so, after he had patiently endured, he obtained the promise."-(Heb. vi. 13, 15.) The reference is therefore to the promise of a multitudinous posterity, which Abraham began to realise before his death. When the promise was given, Sarah was old and barren, and there was no human probability of his having seed; but after patient faith, the promise was fulfilled.
But that Abraham is inheriting the promises, in so far as they involved eternal life and the kingdom of God, is contrary to Paul's express declaration. "These all (Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, &c.,) died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off."-(Heb. xi. 13.)
The Ambassador of the Coming Age, April 1868
When Paul through the Spirit composed the compendium of the faithful, his list included both Abraham and Sarah. They are the only couple to be named in this honour roll of faithful ones, inseparable as always, and especially so in the matter of faith at work in their lives.
As with all the examples he adduced, Paul gave an example of faith from both of them, and in each case a faith that revolved around Isaac their son. Yet the illustrations he provided could not have been more dramatically different.
Of Sarah he would record her amazing faith in conceiving and bringing forth their son despite her natural weakness and insufficiency. Of Abraham he would recall his astonishing faith in offering their son against his natural instincts and understanding. The one matter pertained to life, the other to death. Yet both had a common origin.
Faith, even in an invisible God, is not blind, especially when His influence has already been seen and felt in our lives. He had been at work in theirs, and so their faith was real, even at the point when it would be tested to the uttermost. Faith in God provides the motive power to overcome any circumstance in our lives, and especially those that pertain to our natural inclinations.
Bro Roger Lewis - Abraham and Sarah Ch 9
These all died IN FAITH
Increase of unbelief frequently, almost always, takes the form of an assumed increase of knowledge -- a knowing better, a feeling of being cleverer than the instruction of God's Word.
There is one scriptural fact that will give us a clearer and more living picture of the issues before us. That is that, scripturally speaking, belief is faith and faith is belief. They are not two things, but one. There is only one word for both in the New Testament, and the different translations are just translators' whims. To believe is to have faith; to have faith is to believe, and --
"Faith is the basis of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen" (Heb. 1:1).
Faith, or belief, as the apostle goes to great lengths to illustrate in Hebrews 11, is a vital, living force, a way of life, a power that made men stand alone in the face of the most violent enmity and persecution, and that led them onward to every form of accomplishment and heroism.
So when the Scriptures speak of belief, let us not get a cold, flat, dead, powerless, insipid picture of mere passive mental assent. It is not a saving or pleasing belief in God's sight unless it completely dominates and transforms our lives.
Bro Growcott - BYT 1.25
17 By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac: and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son,
The study of the promise unconnected with the study of the fathers is impossible. Those who are ignorant of the biographies of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, must be ignorant of the gospel, for these patriarchs were the depositories of the promises, which constitute the gospel-hope, and of them Abraham is especially designated as the holder of the promises (Heb. 7:6)
It is for this reason that a man must become of Abraham's seed by adoption through Jesus Christ. Unless a son of Abraham by a like faith and disposition with him, neither Jew nor Gentile can share in Abraham's estate. It is only Abraham's spiritual family that can divide with him the promises he holds.
God has made him the spiritual father of mankind, and the Lord Jesus the elder Brother of the family. If, therefore, a man become a brother of Jesus, he at the same time becomes a son of Abraham, for Jesus is Abraham's seed, and was in the loins of Isaac when Abraham offered his only son, and received him from the dead again in a figure.
If the reader understand this matter, he will fully comprehend the meaning of the apostle's saying, that believers "are all children of God (being Abraham's) by faith in Christ Jesus. For as many as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. And if Christ's THEN Abraham's seed and HEIRS according to the promise" (Gal. 3:26-29).
Elpis Israel 2.2
Abraham faced a decision that tested all his powers of belief and knowledge, and that left him wrestling with incredulity. The only way he could reconcile the request of the angel to put Isaac to death, and the promises whose fulfilment depended on Isaac's life, was to submit to the thought that God could move beyond the bounds of life and death themselves.
Making the decision to obey was the triumph of his faith, which transcended his deepest doubts. He sacrificed Isaac in his heart. 12 and made offering of their son with the spirit of gladness 13 in God's promises. And from whence came the depth of his obedience? He accounted
"that God was able to raise him up".
12 The first word "offered" in Hebrews 11:17 is in the perfect tense and would therefore be better rendered 'had offered'. It indicates that in his heart Abraham had already committed himselffully to the sacrifice of their son in obedience to the divine command.
13 The base of the word "received" in Hebrews 11:17, dechomai, carries with it the notion of 'a welcoming or an appropriating reception' (Grimm-Thayer). It is rendered "gladly received" in the RV.
Bro Roger Lewis - Abraham and Sarah Ch 9
26 Esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt: for he had respect unto the recompence of the reward.
To walk faithfully regardless of reward is impracticable. It is not Bible requirement. The Deity's arrangement (and His way is perfect) is set forth in the following:
"Every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labour" (1 Cor. iii. 8).
Here is an incentive to work-to work hard, and the incentive lies in the prospect of remuneration! Some call this selfish. Be that as it may, it is selfishness of a kind which God approves. It is to be seen in the characters of the most estimable.
Christ endured because of the prospective joy (Heb. xii. 2); Moses had respect into the recompense of the reward (Heb. xi. 8); Paul pressed forward for the prize of the high calling (Phil. iii. 14).
Regard for self is not unscriptural if it be fostered according to the divine mind. Man's interest (in the true sense) can only be secured by pleasing God. His pleasure requires us to practise self-abasement. This is a condition which discovers the godly from among the ordinary run of self-seekers.
The condition involves a trial-a trial which alone can be borne by those who keep the reward well to the front.
Who cannot heartily endorse the words of the Psalmist: "I had fainted unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living?" -
Bro AT Jannaway
TC 05/1887
39 And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise:
Such is the Scriptural obituary of all who die in hope of the kingdom of God...
1. I will give all these countries to thee;
2. I will give all these countries to thy seed who is Christ," says the apostle;
3. I will make thy seed a great multitude;
4. I will give this multitude of people all these countries; and, I will bless all nations in thy seed; the Christ.
As Abraham had died without receiving these promises made to him also, and as Isaac knew they were to inherit together, the promise of "all these countries" to him was equivalent to an assurance that he should rise from the dead, when he would see his father and the Christ in possession of the land, and his descendants increased to a great multitude, and then become a mighty nation exclusively occupying it, and all the nations happy and contented under the dominion of Christ.
This was the gospel he believed; and the heaven, and blessedness for which he hoped.
Elpis Israel 2.3.
They are not to be thus perfected until all the believers of the promise are brought in; for all the faithful of all previous ages are to be perfected together...
Elpis Israel 2.2.
40 God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect.
This "better thing" is all that constitutes the world more desirable in the nineteenth century after Christ, than it was over nineteen hundred years before. It had not then been sufficiently subdued, improved, and replenished.
There was too much unhewn forest; too many wild races of untamed humanity; too few of the conveniences and elegances of life; and the existing civilization itself was too barbarous to constitute a gift worthy of Deity to His saints.
He therefore deferred the fulfilment of His promises until He had developed a world of kingdoms and nations of a higher order of civilization -- such, in short, as now occupies the globe. This is the "better thing provided," the preparation of which has hitherto delayed the perfection of Abraham.
When "the time of the dead" arrives, he, and all the prophets and postpentecostian believers, will stand upon their feet again, and be "made perfect;" and, when perfected in putting on incorruptibility, will receive the Holy Land and Modern World of kingdoms and nations for their reward.
This is "the reward" to be given "in the time of the dead." In writing to the saints in Corinth, Paul says: "The world and all things are yours," and "all things are for you sakes;" and, in arguing that the World was promised to Abraham, and that they who are Christ's are Abraham's Seed, he testifies that the World annexed to the Holy Land was promised to saints.
...From all these testimonies, then, it is evident that "the reward" to be given to the immortalized saints is the Holy Land, occupied by Abraham's descendants, constituting a kingdom, with dominion, absolute and uncontrolled, over all the kingdoms of the world, annexed thereto.
Eureka 11.4.2.