This is what connects all the heroes of faith. They kept believing, but they didn’t receive the thing they were hoping for. They were commended, their faith was right, but it didn’t come to full fruition. It was like hoping for a vacation that you never get to take, but your grandkids do with your life insurance policy.
“There can be miracles, when you believe
Though hope is frail, it's hard to kill
Who knows what miracles you can achieve?
When you believe, somehow you will
You will when you believe.”
It's a powerful scene in The Prince of Egypt. And I can still hear Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston belting out this song. It was a great song to inspire hope and to keep the faith. When we believe — it makes stuff happen. Don’t give up! Keep believing and you’ll see great things happen in your life. Your hopes will be fulfilled.
It’s a moving concept, but is it biblical? Hebrews 11:39-40 should give us pause:
“And all these, though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God had provided something better for us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect.”
Moses, the “Prince of Egypt,” is in that verse. He didn’t receive what was promised? What does that verse mean? And how does it apply to us today?
What Is the Context of Hebrews 11?
Hebrews 11 is a beloved chapter. It is known by many as the Hall of Faith chapter in the Bible. In this chapter, the author of Hebrews recounts the great faith of heroes throughout the Old Testament. But why is he doing this? What role does Hebrews 11 play in his argument?
The author is writing to a group of people who are being tempted to abandon the faith. It seems that they are enduring Jewish persecution — being booted out of the synagogues — and this is causing them to question whether following Jesus is truly worth it. But it’s not an entire abandonment of Jesus that is being suggested to them. They can keep their Jesus — he just needs to be swallowed up by the Jewish faith. If they make Jesus secondary, then they can fit into society again.
Hebrews, then, is a lengthy sermon showing the supremacy of Jesus. It’s essentially an argument saying don’t abandon Jesus. If you reject Christ as your point of access to the Father, then you’ll have no means of access left. In order to do this the author shows how everything in the Old Testament was pointing to Jesus. Jesus fulfilled everything these shadows were pointing to. When the substance is here — you don’t dance with the shadow.
How, then, does Hebrews 11 fit into this argument? It reaches the crescendo here in verses 38-39. This is what connects all the heroes of faith. They kept believing, but they didn’t receive the thing they were hoping for. They were commended, their faith was right, but it didn’t come to full fruition. It was like hoping for a vacation that you never get to take, but your grandkids do with your life insurance policy. This functions as a lesser to greater argument. If they had this kind of faith, though not receiving the promise, then how much more should we keep the faith when we’ve received the gospel?
Philip Edgcumbe Hughes writes, “If those on whom the great light of grace had not yet shone showed such surpassing constancy in bearing their ills, what effect ought the full glory of the gospel to have on us? A tiny spark of light led them to heaven, but now that the Sun of righteousness shines on us what excuse shall we offer if we still cling to the earth?”
This helps us understand the meaning of the verse.
What Does This Verse Mean?
Another key to understanding this verse is to look at the part of the list right before these verses. Right after telling us about those who “shut the mouth of lions” and “quenched the power of fire” we read about some who received a different fate:
“Women received back their dead by resurrection. Some were tortured, refusing to accept release, so that they might rise again to a better life. Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword. They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated — of whom the world was not worthy — wandering about in deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth."
The author of Hebrews, talking to people who are about to give away their faith, lifts up these Old Testament saints not receiving the promise as an encouragement to endure. A faith that says, “good things are always going to happen” isn’t going to endure in an environment where you are going to be flogged or mocked or put in chains. You’re going to compromise your faith to keep you out of those things. Why? Because such a faith has the landing zone in this present world.
You can see this in verses 13-16. Look at what this is saying about Abraham. It’s saying that his goal wasn’t the literal promised land. He was looking for something greater. It’s not about that stretch of land. It’s about what that land represents and is pointing to. It’s about the rest we can have in God. Abraham was looking for something greater.
Or consider what it says about Moses in verse 26. How does he stare at the riches of Egypt and say, “meh,” I’ll suffer with God’s people? You don’t do that if you think the “economy of God” is your best life now. His “best life now” was in Egypt. You only turn your back on Egypt and suffer in a wilderness if you think that God is telling a better story — a “not of this world” story.
The author of Hebrews is telling us that all of these Old Testament believers were looking to Christ. They didn’t know the identity of Christ. They didn’t know exactly what they were looking for — but they were entrusting their future to God. And the author of Hebrews is saying that what they were hoping for is right in our hands. Why would you throw that away and then go back to hoping like these people in the Old Testament? Why would you want to go back to that? Why not receive the promise?
Which begs the question, what is that promise?
What Has Been Promised?
To understand what is promised we need to back to the Garden of Eden and see what we were created for. I like to summarize this with three R’s:
Rest
Rule
Relationship
We were created for shalom. It’s symbolized in the beautiful garden which humanity was place in. This is the land of promises. It’s what the Sabbath is pointing to. It’s being home. We were created for this.
We were also created to work and keep the garden. This means God gave us a purpose and something to do. Humanity was created as vice-regents to steward God’s good creation. Humanity was to reflect God through lovingly ruling creation.
And they were created for a relationship. It wasn’t good for Adam to be alone because he couldn’t reflect the glory of a triune God by himself. Therefore, God gave him a helper. But they weren’t only to relate to one another. We see they walked with God in the cool of the morning. They were created to relate to God.
But humanity made shipwreck of this. As such, we forfeited rest, rule, and relationship. We were booted out of the garden, our relationship with God, creation, and one another was wrecked, and our purpose would now be swallowed up by the futility which thorns and thistles bring.
Yet, this isn’t the end of the story. Even in the curses of Genesis 3, God promises to bring a rescuer. One who would crush the head of the serpent. And we see this promise begin to fill out through Abraham. Once again, he is promised rest, rule, and relationship. God is redeeming and restoring all of this. This is what each of those Old Testament believers was looking to — this is what was promised. Redemption. A restoration of our rest, rule, and relationship. Where our relationship with God was no longer fractured, and we returned to the Garden.
The author of Hebrews, then, is arguing that Christ is the One who has done this. He has once again given us access to God. He is our Sabbath rest. He has restored our purpose. He has overturned the curse. They couldn’t “be made perfect” without this work of Christ. And neither can we. Which is why we see what we do in Hebrews 12.
“Therefore…” because Christ is the fulfillment of the promise, and all of these Old Testament witnesses are pointing to Him, “let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith” (the one who it was all pointing to), “who for the joy set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of God.”
Why would you turn away from this?
How Does This Verse Encourage Us to Have a Powerful Faith?
We are, at least in some sense, in a similar position to the saints of Old. Yes, we know Christ. And in a very real way we are already living out the promises. We are seeing rest, rule, and relationship restored. In Christ we already possess the benefits of these promises.
But we possess these promises more like a springtime thaw. Winter is vanishing and the life of spring is upon us. It’s not here in full, not yet. But it’s coming. We exercise rest, rule, and relationship even today. It’s restored. But someday we will experience them all fully in the new heavens and the new earth.
In the meantime, we, like the saints of old, look to the promise of the return of Christ. We look to the complete fulfillment of all these promises. We, as the author says, “cling to Christ.”
Yes, we see miracles when we believe. But not because of the vivacity of our faith. It’s because of the object of our faith. Christ, who fulfills the promise, is overturning the curse. And we get to participate in the thawing of winter.
Source
Philip Edgcumbe Hughes, A Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews, The New International Commentary on the Old and New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1977), 516.
Photo credit: ©Getty Images/Ippei Naoi
Mike Leake is husband to Nikki and father to Isaiah and Hannah. He is also the lead pastor at Calvary of Neosho, MO. Mike is the author of Torn to Heal and Jesus Is All You Need. His writing home is http://mikeleake.net and you can connect with him on Twitter @mikeleake. Mike has a new writing project at Proverbs4Today.
