Many of us consider Hebrews 11 to be one of our favorite scriptural passages. This “Hall of Faith” inspires us to imitate the heroes of the faith in past ages. This is as it should be. God’s word is timeless and its lessons apply to God’s people in every age.
Our concern in this post is what this passage meant for the first-century Hebrew Christians to whom Paul wrote. How does it fit into the overall flow of the Hebrew letter? How does the first-century historical situation shed light on Paul’s meaning? Does the prophetic model we have derived—inmillennialism—shed light on these questions?
Let us remind ourselves of the major outline of Paul’s argument. He contends that, in the last days of the Mosaic Age (Heb. 1:1–2), God has spoken through his Son. This revelation transcends all that came before. The revelations that involved angels, Moses, and the Aaronic priesthood pale compared to Jesus and his Word.
As he approaches the faith chapter, Paul enumerates the things God is doing in his generation. He is taking away the first (Mosaic) covenant so that he may establish the second (Messianic) covenant (Heb. 10: 9). He has enthroned the true High Priest who, by one offering, has taken away our sins. The typical sacrifices of the high priests at Jerusalem will soon cease because the Temple and Aaronic priesthood will disappear (cp. Matt. 24:1–3, 34). God has already established his new house (Heb. 10:21). Soon, God will pour out his vengeance against the apostate Jews (Heb. 10:25–30; cp. Luke 21:22, 32; 2 Thess. 1:8). This will happen with the coming of Christ in judgment in a very, very little while (Heb. 10:37).
These changes will require the Hebrews to “live by faith” (Heb. 10:38). Paul quotes the Old Testament to make his point: “the just shall live by his faith” (Hab. 2:4). God would fulfill this prophecy, according to John Gill, “at the end of the Jewish state, both civil and ecclesiastic, [when] the Messiah should appear, as he did, which is called the end of the world, 1 Cor. 10:11; Heb. 9:26. when a new world began, the world to come, the Gospel dispensation.”1
Paul wants the Hebrews to recognize this prophecy pertains to their historical situation. They were living during the time Habakkuk envisioned: at the beginning of the Messianic Age when God’s people would “live by faith.” Paul uses the future tense—“the just shall live by faith”—to emphasize he is speaking about life in the age about to come.
In that age, faith would replace sight in significant ways. “Before faith came,” the Hebrews “were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed” (Gal. 3:23). The faith had now come. Much of what characterized the old age would not remain in the new.
Paul encourages the Hebrews to embrace the transition to the Messianic Age by citing Old Testament examples. These have a common characteristic: Saints act because of their utter confidence in God’s word. They do not survey their surroundings, conduct an opinion poll, or calculate a cost-benefit ratio. They act because they know God’s word—in most cases a prophetic word—and act without hesitation, abandoning themselves to what God has said.
The Hebrews must act on this principle. God’s prophetic word had declared the coming of Christ (Isa. 7:14),2 the establishment of his kingdom in the days of the Roman kings (Dan. 2:44), the outpouring of the Holy Spirit (Joel 2:28), the enthronement of Christ (Dan. 7:13–14), and the victorious spread of his kingdom over all enemies (Psa. 110:1). God had shown the covenant change that formed the basis of the Messianic Age (Jer. 31:31). His prophets had also shown how God would judge his people (the Jews) in an unparalleled time of suffering (Hosea 9:7).
The Hebrews were witnessing (or would soon witness) the fulfillment of these prophecies. God had now spoken through Christ (Heb. 1:1–2). The Hebrews must now imitate the saints of ages past by acting on the revealed word of God. They must leave the Mosaic Age and enter the new age about to come “by faith.”
Certain elements of the faith-acts Paul mentions pertain to the Hebrews’ situation in a striking manner.
Faith Deals With Unseen Realities
The Hebrews must act in faith on unseen realities. They were entering the Messianic Age in which they would worship God “in spirit and in truth.” No longer would they travel to a specific geographic location. They would worship the true and living God everywhere, not just in Jerusalem. As “true worshippers,” their worship would not focus on the Temple they could see with their physical eyes (John 4:21–24). God was changing corporate worship from a visible place to one invisible to physical eyes.
Several examples in the Apostle’s list reinforce the sight-unseen nature of faith. These support the Apostle’s message about the transformation of worship underway in his generation.
The Hebrews accepted the Genesis account of creation even though God made the universe from invisible elements (Heb. 11:3). They should “walk by faith, not sight” (2 Cor. 5:7) regarding the Messianic Age. The “new creation” (Gal. 6:15, ESV) was just as real as the original creation, even though unseen.
Noah had never seen a flood (Heb. 11:7) and may have never even seen rain when God told him to build an ark (cp. Gen. 2:6). He built it and saved himself and his family without the benefit of seeing what was coming. The Hebrews, Paul says, should imitate Noah. They had never seen the real, but invisible, new Temple, or the High Priest seated at the right hand of God. Yet, like Noah, they should prepare for life in the new age by faith. They should not yield to the temptation to return to the worship of God they could see with their natural eyes.
Faith Acts to Obtain God’s Inheritance
The transformation through which God was leading the Hebrews would leave them with a new country. As we have just seen, they could not see this country with their natural eyes. From this point forward, their citizenship would be in heaven (Phil. 3:20, ESV), not in a country on earth with physical boundaries. They would lay their treasures up in their new homeland, not on earth (Matt. 6:19–21; 19:21). They were now fellow citizens with saints of all ages and locales (Eph. 2:19) in the true Jerusalem, their new capital city (Gal. 4:26; expecting Heb. 12:22–23).
The Apostle provides Old Testament examples of saints seeking a new country by faith. He means to encourage the Hebrews in their somewhat analogous relocation: “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” (Heb. 11:8). The Hebrews should obey God’s call for them to enter their new (unseen) country.
Paul expands this image to other Old Testament saints. They declared, by their willingness to follow God’s word, that they looked for a new country (Heb. 11:14–16). They joined Abraham in looking for “a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God” (Heb. 11:10).
As we shall see in our next post (D. V.), the Hebrews had come to the city and country for which these Old Testament saints longed (Heb. 12:22). Paul wants his readers to be strong in faith and enter the heavenly Jerusalem.
This new country was their inheritance. The unseen Temple and country of which Paul spoke were there. Jesus had sent the Apostles to declare how men receive this inheritance. He had appeared to Paul and told him he would send him to the Gentiles “to open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me” (Acts 26:18; emphasis added). God has made believers fit “to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light” and has “translated them into the kingdom of his dear Son” (Col. 1:12–13; emphasis added).
Paul wanted the Hebrews to exercise faith in this matter. Their true inheritance lay in the soon-coming age, not the Mosaic Age God was ending.
Faith Acts on God’s Promises
The Old Testament saints “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” (Heb 11:13). Acting on the promises in God’s word is the essence of faith.
Abraham did not see the fulfillment of God’s promise that his posterity would become a great nation and bless all the nations of the earth (Heb. 11:17–19; cp. Gen. 12:1–3). Neither did Isaac, Jacob, or Joseph (Heb. 11:20–22). Moses did not see the land of Canaan for which he longed and suffered (Heb. 11:23–30)—a land that itself was a type (or picture) of the true Promised Land inheritance.
The judges Paul mentions (Heb. 11:32) lived in the typical land but knew God had promised something better. So did David, Samuel, the prophets, and a host of unnamed Old Testament saints (Heb. 11:33–38).
Paul closes his faith-admonition to the Hebrews with a shocking statement: the unfulfilled promises upon which these saints had acted were now—in the Hebrews’ generation—being fulfilled through Christ. God had provided “some better thing” for the Hebrews, things earlier generations had not experienced (Heb. 11:40).
The “perfection” God promised long ago had now arrived. God had perfected his people—Old Testament saints, the Hebrews’ of Paul’s generation, and saints of future generations—in Christ. Paul said he spoke “wisdom among those who are mature [“perfect”, KJV], yet not the wisdom of this [Mosaic] age, nor of the rulers of this [Mosaic] age, who are coming to nothing” (1 Cor. 2:6, NKJV).
The promises upon which the Old Testament saints had acted were now, in Christ, becoming reality. Paul could say, “all the promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen, unto the glory of God by us” (2 Cor. 1:20).
This does not mean all the promises of God had reached their final state. Christ had not yet subdued all his enemies and would not do so until the Messianic Age completed its course (Heb. 1:13; cp. Psa. 110:1). Chief among those enemies was death, which Christ would defeat in the resurrection to which saints of both the Old and New Testaments look (Heb. 11:35; cp. 1 Cor. 15:25–26). Faith (along with hope and charity) would continue in the Messianic Age, expecting the ultimate fulfillment of God’s promises (1 Cor. 13:13).
Paul’s point to the Hebrews is this: you have now seen how God intends to fulfill his promises through Christ. The Old Testament saints had far less information, yet they acted in faith in God’s word. How much more should the complete revelation produce a faith that acts on God’s promises?
Conclusion
Paul’s reasoning does not imply God’s saints did not exercise faith in ages past. This is obvious from the list of faith-acts he provides. Neither does it imply faith would be unnecessary in the Messianic Age. His message rests on the fact that the complete revelation about the glories of Christ in the Messianic Age should persuade the Hebrews to embrace the age-change God was making.
Inmillennialism shows the rich historical context of Paul’s extensive discussion of the role of faith in his generation. Other prophetic models do not make this context as explicit.
Footnotes
- John Gill, An Exposition of the Old and New Testaments, The Baptist Commentary Series (Paris, AR: The Baptist Standard Bearer, 1989), 6:619.
- Passages in this paragraph are representative of many others.
