PART TWO
PART TWO
“There’s no place like home.”
Famously uttered by Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, this may be one of the best-known lines in cinematic history. It has survived the test of time not just because it was spoken in a popular film, but because we all know it’s true. There really is something special about being home, where things are safe and familiar.
But what if God asked you to leave your comfortable home? What if he asked you to leave and didn’t even tell you where you were going or what it would be like once you got there? Would you go?
That’s precisely the situation in which Abraham found himself. He was faced with circumstances that would require radical obedience. And this would not be the only time.
Hebrews 11:8-22 reviews Abraham’s great legacy. And here’s the big lesson we learn from his life: radical obedience requires radical beliefs. Great deeds are not accomplished just by effort or will power. No, they flow naturally from what we believe. They are born out of faith.
A Better Home
Hebrews 11:8 rehearses the events of Genesis 12:1, when God called Abraham to leave his home and journey to a foreign land. He was “to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance.” But here’s the problem: Abraham didn’t know “where he was going”!
Of course, God promised that this plot of land—the land of Canaan—would one day become the inheritance of Abraham’s many descendants. But Abraham did not get to see that day. On the contrary, “he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents” (Hebrews 11:9).
Even so, we read that Abraham did not resist or delay his departure. He did not complain or make excuses. Instead, “Abraham obeyed when he was called” (v 8). This is an echo of Genesis 12:4: “So Abram went, as the Lord had told him.”
So, what allowed Abraham to carry out such an amazing act of obedience? We are told that he did it “by faith”—the refrain repeated throughout this entire chapter. Abraham believed something that allowed him to obey. Hebrews 11:10 tells us what that was: “For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God.”
This is incredible. We might have expected the text to say that Abraham obeyed because he couldn’t wait to enjoy this new land that God had promised him. But instead we are told that Abraham obeyed because he was “looking forward” to a different land altogether! He was willing to leave his home because his hope was in a future city that was eternal, not temporary—a heavenly city, not an earthly one. A city with “foundations” is a permanent city. Instead of just “living in tents” (v 9), one day Abraham would have a dwelling that is unshakable (12:28).
Abraham knew the promised land of Canaan was not his ultimate reward. We see here an echo of the themes in Hebrews 3 and 4: God’s “rest” was never just a physical plot of land somewhere. The ultimate rest is (and always was) our future heavenly home.
A Better People
Abraham was willing to leave his home because he trusted in God’s promise. But this was not the only time his faith would be tested. God made another promise to Abraham—and this one was also difficult to believe. God promised that Abraham’s descendants would be like “the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore” (Genesis 22:17).
There was just one little problem. Sarah was “past the age” (Hebrews 11:11) of conceiving a child. She was barren. And Abraham was so old that he was “as good as dead” (v 12). Indeed, this promise was so difficult to believe that at first Sarah laughed (Genesis 18:12). Even though Abraham believed God’s promise (Genesis 15:6), he seemed to struggle with his own doubt at times, taking his servant Hagar and conceiving with her instead (Genesis 16:4).
But despite these initial doubts, Sarah did believe God. Hebrews 11:11 says she “received power to conceive” precisely because “she considered him faithful who had promised.”
Because of the faith of both Abraham and Sarah, we are told that God did what he promised—from one man there were descendants like the “stars of heaven” and the “sand by the seashore” (v 12).
We should remember, however, that God’s promise regarding Abraham’s “offspring” is like the promise he made about the land—it points forward to something greater. Indeed, Paul picks up on this language in his letter to the Galatians and reminds us that “the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, ‘And to offsprings,’ referring to many, but referring to one … who is Christ” (Galatians 3:16).
Furthermore, it was not just Abraham’s physical offspring, and not even only Christ, that God had in mind when he made the promise but the spiritual offspring that come through Christ. That’s why Paul could make this stunning statement in Galatians a few verses later: “If you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise” (3:29). This would have been mind-blowing to anyone in Paul’s Jewish world. The descendants like the stars in the sky were not ultimately referring to the nation of Israel but to all who would trust in Jesus. And that means Abraham’s offspring would include all nations, not just ethnic Israel.
Incredibly, Abraham was not looking forward to just a heavenly land but also to a heavenly people. He was looking forward to a people who were defined by their faith. This was precisely what God promised in the new covenant: a new people who would have the law written on their hearts (Hebrews 8:10-11; Jeremiah 31:33-34).
A Future Hope
In Hebrews 11:13-16, our author focuses again on the beliefs and attitudes that fueled the radical obedience of the great saints of the Old Testament, with Abraham still primarily in view. In essence, their faith was forward looking, anticipating that God would keep his promises in the future. After all, “these all died in faith, not having received the things promised” (v 13). They realized they would never in this life see the complete fulfillments of God’s promise, but nevertheless “greeted them from afar.”
By doing so, these saints demonstrated the core principle of faith noted at the beginning of this great chapter—Hebrews 11. Faith, by definition, is “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (v 1). They didn’t see, but they still believed.
This forward-looking posture of faith meant that Abraham and the patriarchs did not view this world as their real home. Instead, they “acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth” (v 13).
This is particularly remarkable language in the case of Abraham because he actually made it to the promised land. However, even while in Canaan, Abraham considered himself a foreigner because he was still “seeking a homeland” (v 14). He was after “a better country, that is, a heavenly one” (v 16).
Once again, our author uses the word “better.” As noted in the introduction, the idea that Jesus—and all that he brings in the new covenant—is better is basically the theme of the whole book. We have seen that we have a “better hope” (7:19), a “better covenant” (7:22), with “better promises” (8:6), “better sacrifices” (9:23), and a “better possession” (10:34). And now we have a “better country” (11:16).
In case anyone doubted that the patriarchs were interested more in a heavenly home than an earthly one, our author offers additional proof: “If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return” (v 15). This is a basic appeal to logic. If the patriarchs were longing for their earthly homeland, they could have just travelled there! But instead they turned their attention to the future home that awaited them.
In short, these great saints didn’t turn back. No doubt this would have been a challenge to the original recipients of Hebrews, which consisted of Jewish Christians tempted to return to the ways of the old covenant. The example of Abraham encourages them to look forward, not backward.
This is why we are told that “God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city” (v 16). Essentially, God is honoring their faith. Because they wanted to be with God, God prepares a place where they can be with him. This is an echo of verse 6: “[God] rewards those who seek him.”
Abraham’s example can be a powerful one in our modern world. Particularly in the West, most of us are affluent enough to enjoy nice homes—ones that are comfortable and safe. As a result, we can easily begin to make this world our home, forgetting that a much better one—a real and glorious one—awaits us.
In short, we’ve become enamored with the seen things rather than the unseen. The cure to this kind of worldliness is to change what we believe—about God and about ourselves. We need to recover our real identity as “strangers and exiles.” When we remember that we are just passing through, we are less apt to place our hope in our earthly dwellings. Like Abraham, we need to consider our present homes to be like “living in tents” (v 9)—they are transient and temporary.
The Ultimate Test
God asked Abraham to trust him in some very difficult circumstances—in leaving his home for an unknown land and in believing he would have an heir despite Sarah’s barren womb. But all of that seems like just a warm-up for what was next. Abraham was “tested” by God when he was asked to do the unthinkable: to offer up his son Isaac (v 17; see Genesis 22:1-2).
It is hard to wrap our minds around how difficult this would have been. At the most obvious level, this boy Isaac—now probably around the age of 12 or 13—was Abraham’s son. No doubt he loved him more than life itself. Beyond this, God’s command seemed out of sync with his earlier promises. Remember, God had promised that Abraham would have offspring like the stars in the sky; and Isaac was the key to that promise. If Isaac died, how would God keep his promise?
Our passage acknowledges precisely this dilemma by adding two bits of information that seem superfluous. First, Hebrews 11:17 reminds us that Abraham was the one “who had received the promises” regarding his future offspring. Then verse 18 adds a simple fact about Isaac: “… of whom it was said, ‘Through Isaac shall your offspring be named’” (citing Genesis 21:12). In other words, our author wants us to feel the dilemma that Abraham felt.
In this particular story, we come face to face with one of the most common (and most difficult) ways that God tests people: he asks us to obey him even when it doesn’t make sense. We will see this come up again later in Hebrews 11, but certainly Abraham faced one of the most challenging versions of this test. To give up your own child—for what seems like no good reason—might be the hardest test anyone could ever face.
Incredibly, Abraham obeys again. And he obeys immediately. We are told simply that he offered up Isaac (v 17). There were no complaints, no questions, no resistance. The immediate nature of Abraham’s obedience is particularly clear in the original Genesis account, where we read that Abraham, after hearing God’s command, “rose early in the morning” to do it (Genesis 22:3).
Of course, at this point there is an obvious, burning question: how? How could any man obey like this under such difficult circumstances?
It is here that our author returns again to the theme of the chapter: Abraham’s obedience flowed from his faith. It was empowered by what he believed. And what did he believe? Verse 19 tells us something amazing: “He considered that God was able even to raise him [Isaac] from the dead.” Abraham was so sure that God would keep his promise that he figured that God must intend to do a miracle—to bring Isaac back to life if necessary.
Even though everyone would have known how the story ended, the author is keen to say it: Abraham “did receive him back.” Isaac was not raised from the dead literally, but he was “figuratively” raised, meaning that he escaped death. And he escaped death because a substitute was made for him: “a ram, caught in a thicket by his horns” (Genesis 22:13). Isaac lived because another died. His blood was spared because the blood of another was shed.
What a fitting picture of Christ in the book of Hebrews. Our author has been focused on how bloodshed is needed for absolution. The story of Abraham and Isaac is a perfect picture of this reality—a picture of the gospel message.
One day God, like Abraham, would put into action his plan to sacrifice his one and only Son. But there would be a big difference. This time, no one would come to the rescue. This time there would be no angel sent to intervene, as was done for Isaac. In the case of the Son of God, there would be no reprieve. He would actually die. And he would actually be raised from the dead.
The Legacy of Faith
Since Abraham was so faithful, it is no surprise that his offspring exhibited that same faith. In Hebrews 11:20-22, our author turns to the next few generations, showing that they too were forward-looking people who trusted in God’s promises.
We are reminded in verse 20 that Isaac bestowed “future blessings” on his sons, Jacob and Esau (Genesis 27:27-29, 39-40). Yes, Jacob obtained his blessing deceitfully through trickery. Nevertheless, Isaac’s faith was evident; he trusted that God would keep his promises to bless the “offspring” of Abraham, which included these two sons.
Even though Jacob had lied to his father, he was still a man of faith, and the covenant line continued through him, not Esau. It is a reminder again that God sometimes works through the unlikeliest of people. Some seem as if they would believe and yet do not, and some seem as if they would never believe, and yet, by God’s grace, they do.
Jacob’s faith is also on display when he blesses the next generation. In his case, we are told that he “blessed each of the sons of Joseph” (Hebrews 11:21), a reference to the scene of Jacob on his deathbed in Genesis 48:17-20. In addition to the blessing, Jacob’s faith is also exhibited by the fact that he bowed in worship “over the head of his staff.” (Our author relies on the Greek version of the Old Testament here, whereas the Hebrew mentions “head of his bed.”) This is actually a separate scene (Genesis 47:31; the NASB, a more literal translation, makes that clearer.)
Since Joseph has just been mentioned, our author finishes this section by talking about how Joseph’s faith was displayed at the end of his life when he “made mention of the exodus of the Israelites and gave directions concerning his bones” (Hebrews 11:22). This refers to Genesis 50:24-25, where Joseph reminded his brothers that God’s promise to give his people the land of Canaan would be fulfilled. Someday, they would be delivered from Egypt, and he wanted them to take his bones with them.
Joseph’s story is a good place to end this section because his confident faith is palpable in his final words. He really did believe that God would do what he promised. In fact, you will notice that these last three examples of faith all pertain to what these patriarchs said on their deathbed. Facing death is the real test of one’s faith. It is the moment when we realize—more than at any other moment, perhaps—that this earthly world is not our real home.
In each case—Isaac, Jacob, and —these Old Testament saints showed that they were really longing for a heavenly home—one “whose designer and builder is God” (Hebrews 11:10).