PM Home Bible Study Group; January 13, 2016
Hebrews 11:1-6
Theme: The writer offers sound reasons for not drawing back from the throne of grace because of opposition to the faith.
All Scripture is taken from The New King James Version, unless otherwise indicated.
So far in our study of Hebrews, we’ve considered Jesus’ superiority over the Old Covenant. We’ve been shown that He is the Mediator of a New Covenant from God—a greater covenant than that which was initiated through Moses. And because this letter was a message to Jewish believers who needed to be exhorted to New Covenant commitments, the writer went to great lengths to prove to them—from the Scriptures—that Jesus had a superior glory (1:1-2:4), a superior ministry (2:5-4:13), and a superior priesthood (4:14-10:39) than that which could have been given in the Old Covenant. And now, the writer begins a new focus in his letter—the practical life of faith that is lived out in the New Covenant. A key focus in this “new life” under a “New Covenant” is the exhortation to “run with endurance the race that is set before” them—ever looking to Jesus as “the author and finisher of our faith” (Hebrews 12:1-2).
Now; the writer of Hebrews could go from issuing the call in 10:35 that these suffering, persecuted Jewish believers not cast away their confidence in Christ, directly to the appeal to run the race with endurance. But to encourage them with real-life experiences, he first reminds them of the stories of those in the past who have already run the race before them. This ‘great cloud of witnesses’ (12:1) are—as it were—in the stands of a great athletic competition; cheering these believers on as they run the race, because they themselves have already completed it successfully through faith in the New Covenant victory that Jesus has won for us.
Chapter 11 of Hebrews, then, is a chapter of great encouragement to the people of God—and has been throughout the centuries. The stories of several Old Testament heroes and heroines of faith are brought together to make a convincing case for continuing to run faithfully to the end. And it begins with a brief explanation of the nature of the kind of faith that we are to have in Jesus.
I. WHAT FAITH IS (vv. 1-3).
A. The writer begins by saying, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (v. 1). The word “now” in the original language links what is said at the beginning of Chapter 11 with what preceded it in 10:38-39. We’re told (as is quoted from Habakkuk 2:3-4) that “the just shall live by faith”; and that “we are not of those who draw back to perdition, but of those who believe to the saving of the soul.” “Faith”. “Believing”. This is to be the great characteristic of the follower of Jesus.
B. But what exactly is faith? Many today dismiss the whole idea of faith. They consider it the act of believing in things in spite of the evidence. “Faith” today is popularly considered to be the opposite of “science” and “reason”. One little boy was once asked what ‘faith’ is; and he answered in a way that expresses the superficial understanding that most people have today: “Faith is believing what you know good and well ain’t true.” But that’s not at all the kind of ‘faith’ that the Christian is called to have. That false version of faith is better described as “blind credulity”—the willingness to believe something in the absence of any reason or proof. And the Christian faith that presented in Scripture is one that is basis in eye-witnessed historical evidence of things that have happened the world of time/space reality (John 1:14; 20:24-31; Acts 2:32; 1 Corinthians 15:1-11; 2 Peter 1:16-21; 1 John 1:1-4). As the writer tells us, it involves the apprehension of ‘things hoped for’ and ‘things not seen’. But those ‘things’ are understood to be true things that have their basis in history, and in eyewitness testimony, and in the revealed word of God—though they are things not presently realized in experience or currently apprehended by the senses. Just as the physical eye is the apparatus for perceiving physical realities, faith is the apparatus for perceiving realities that are rooted in the sovereign plan of God revealed in His word. But they are understood to be realities—not mere fantasy wishes! We can think of faith as the ‘wire’ that completes the circuit between what we see right now, and what God says will one day be. The writer, therefore, goes on to give one of the greatest definitions of true biblical faith that can be found anywhere—the kind of faith that we are to have in the saving work of Jesus.
1. First, faith is “the substance of things hoped for”. The word translated “substance” here is made more plain when we see the way it is used elsewhere in Hebrews. In 1:3, for example, the writer uses it to explain how Jesus is related to God the Father as “the express image of His person”. This speaks of Jesus as something like an engraved stamp which, when pressed into wax, leaves an exact representation of the character of the stamp itself. Jesus gives us the perfectly accurate express image of the Father; so that we know the substance of the Father through what we see in the substance of Jesus. “No one has seen God at any time,” John tell us. “The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him” (John 1:18). And in Hebrews 3;14, this same word is also used; where we’re told that “we have become partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end . . .” Here, our “confidence” is used as a figure of speech for our faith. It is the practical exercise of certainty. And so, in this sense, the promises of God concern things that are placed before us as sure and certain foundations of hope; and “faith” is that which gives practical substance to that hope and puts it to work in confident action. Without it, the hope that God sets before is cannot be grasped by us or lived out by us.
2. Second, faith is “the evidence of things not seen”. In this world, at this present time, our faith is the practical ‘evidence’ of things that have been promised by God—but not yet realized in the world. Paul, in Romans 8:24-25, wrote that “hope that is seen is not hope; for why does one still hope for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with perseverance.” And in this sense, “faith” is the “evidence” or “conviction” of things that are real, and true, and that are reasonable to expect with certainty on the basis of the promises of God, but that are not yet seen by the eye.
C. The writer of Hebrews points to some of the heroes and heroines of this kind of faith in the Old Testament era; and writes, “These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off were assured of them, embraced them and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth” (Hebrews 11:13). Thus, in our passage, the writer says, “For by it” that is, by this kind of faith, “the elders obtained a good testimony” (v. 2). This is what launches the writer into the wonderful biographical examples he gives of those who had faith before us—those who believed that God would keep His promises!
D. As a demonstration of how this kind of faith is reasonable to have, the writer goes on to say, “By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible” (v. 3). Such faith is reasonable—and indeed, even necessary—because there is literally no other way to know the origin of the created realm (the “ages” as the writer calls them), except by faith in the testimony of God. None of us were there to see this great, vast “something” come forth from “nothing”, and there could therefore be no other way of knowing or testing the origin of that which now exists. We can only know how it all came into existence by the Creator Himself telling us—and then, by our seeing afterward that it does indeed conform to the realities we can examine. As Psalm 33:6-9 has it;
By the word of the Lord the heavens were made,
And all the host of them by the breath of His mouth.
He gathers the waters of the sea together as a heap;
He lays up the deep in storehouses.
Let all the earth fear the Lord;
Let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of Him.
For He spoke, and it was done;
He commanded, and it stood fast (Psalm 33:6-9).
II. HOW FAITH ACTS (v. 4).
A. Having established what true biblical faith is, the writer now gives us an example of how it acts. Since he had been considering Genesis 1 and the creation story, he now goes to Genesis 4 and to the first great example of faith in Scripture. He writes; “By faith Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, through which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts; and through it he being dead still speaks” (v. 4).
1. The Genesis story tells of how God had accepted Abel’s sacrifice, but rejected Cain’s. The testimony was that Abel’s was “a more excellent” sacrifice than his brother’s; and the reason for this testimony seems to be because Abel’s sacrifice was an expression of faith. Cain had brought forth the fruit of the ground as an expression of the work of his own hands. But Abel brought of the first born of his flock and their fat (Genesis 4:3-4). And this offering from the flocks is shown to be a great act of faith when we remember the experience of Abel’s parents. Adam and Eve had sinned, and had sought to cover themselves inadequately before God with fig leaves. God covered them instead with the skin of an animal—which would have involved the death of a substitute. When we see this in the light of God’s promise in Genesis 3:15—that the Seed of the woman would bruise the head of the serpent—then we can see God’s promise regarding the coming Seed (Jesus Christ) as the promise of a Substitute who would atone for sin. Abel’s sacrifice, then was an act of faith in the promise that God gave to his parents—a faith that was actively demonstrated through the death of an animal substitute. Abel’s offering, then, was accepted because it was an act of faith in the promise of God; while Cain’s was not.
2. God testified to the righteousness of Abel’s act of faith—looking ahead as it did, by faith, to the sacrifice of Christ. God, we’re told, “respected Abel and his offering, but He did not respect Cain and his offering” (Genesis 4:4-5). God even told Cain, “If you do well, will you not be accepted?” (v. 7). In jealousy, Cain killed his brother; and the apostle John asks, “And why did he murder him? Because his works were evil and his brother’s righteous” (1 John 3:12). So, Abel obtained an enduring testimony from God that he was righteous because of his faith. As the Scriptures say, “the just shall live by his faith” (Habakkuk 2:4). God thus testified through the gift of Abel; “and through it he being dead still speaks”—calling us today to also seek righteousness before God on the basis of faith in His promise.
B. What a great example this is then! Abel’s faith truly was “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen”—a faith that looked ahead to the promise of God that would be fulfilled in the Seed of the woman; a faith that considered the promise to be about something real, and that acted in confident obedience to God on the basis of it. As Dr. F.F. Bruce wrote about the heroes of faith in this chapter, “Their faith consisted simply in taking God at His word and directing their lives accordingly; things yet future so far as their experience went were thus present to faith, and things outwardly unseen were visible to the inward eye” (NICNT, p. 277).
III. WHY FAITH IS NECESSARY (vv. 5-6).
A. To help us see why such faith is necessary, the writer gives us another early testimony of faith. “By faith Enoch was taken away so that he did not see death, ‘and was not found, because God had taken him’ . . .” (v. 5). This remarkable story speaks of the man Enoch—the seventh from Adam; who was also a prophet before God (Jude 14). We’re given very little of the details about him; but are simply told that he walked with God, “and he was not, for God took him” (Genesis 5:24). But we are told this about him; that he lived sixty-five years and then gave birth to his first son Methuselah; and then—after the birth of his son—he “walked with God three hundred years”. It may be that Enoch was not walking with God before then, but began to walk with God by faith afterward. The writer tells us, “for before he was taken he had this testimony, that he pleased God.” In that sense, he had a testimony of having pleased God that is very hard to argue with: They were walking together—a man with God, as friend to Friend—and they apparently kept right on walking together to God’s abode.
B. And the reason this is important to our discussion on faith is because there is a principle involved for which Enoch serves as a powerful example. We’re told, “But without faith it is impossible to please Him” (v. 6). It is not possible to please God without faith. No one will ever be able to say, “If You will first show me, God, that you are pleased with me, then I will have faith in You.” In a way that fits in perfectly with the sovereign purpose of God, our faith is necessary to the experience of His favor.
1. The writer expands on this necessity—how it is impossible to please God without faith—in two very obvious ways. First, he says, “for he who comes to God must believe that He is . . .” No one can come to God—not being able to see God—if He does not actually believe God exists beyond the realm of sight. Even an atheist can believe unto salvation; but only by setting aside atheism and believing.
2. And second, the writer affirms that with believing that He exists, one must also believe “that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.” To simply believe that God exists puts no one at any advantage over the devil himself. One must believe that rewards those who truly seek Him—and, on the basis of that belief, truly rise up and seek Him in obedience and love.
* * * * * * * * * *
The apostle Paul would heartily agree with what is written in these first few verses of Hebrews 11. He wrote;
But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe. For there is no difference; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed, to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus (Romans 3:21-26).
Read through those words again! Note how many times faith is mentioned! Consider how necessary it is—as the only means by which one can be righteous in God’s sight! Consider how it looks in actual practice—with the work of Christ in view! And consider what the true nature of it is—as that which grabs hold of the sure promises of God.
May God help us to grow in this kind of faith!