Now faith is [the] substantiating of things hoped for, [the] conviction of things not seen.
Hebrews 11 opens by telling us what faith does before it lists the people who lived by it. Its two short phrases raise one question: how can what you cannot see be solid now?
Commentators point out what this line is not.
It is not a definition of this principle that the letter gives us at the start of Hebrews 11, but a declaration of its powers and action. Faith realises (gives substance to) that which we hope for, and is a demonstration to the soul of that which we do not see.
Its effects are plain to see. Faith itself is not.
No one can explain the mystery of faith, any more than the mystery of life, or light, or love, or a thousand and one things. God brings these things into existence, and alone knows their secret. Those of us who have faith can mark its effects, its powers, what it feeds on, and what it reaches for. But as to the thing itself, no one knows.
The ESV says "assurance." Older translations say "substance," and some render it "substantiating." Faith takes what God has promised and makes it real in your soul today.
"Faith is the substance," or "the substantiation of things hoped for." It is what makes the "things hoped for" a reality in the present. It is "the evidence," or, better, "the conviction" — what the power of divine truth brings into the soul as a reality, "of things not seen."
This is exactly what shaped Jacob's dying request that his body be carried out of Egypt for burial in the land God had promised.
The promise of God was a reality to their faith, since "Faith is the substantiating of things hoped for." The things hoped for are real, and faith substantiates them, or, makes them real, to us.
The second clause is often misread as a leap in the dark. The opposite is true.
Faith also has that special power of showing us "things not seen." Faith in the living God is not blind. It is the actual opening of the eyes, accepting unquestionable evidence that unseen, spiritual things are real.
Faith also settles where we look.
When wrong exists it is well that we should see it, but if that is all that we see, we easily go wrong ourselves. It is when the eye of faith is fixed on God, that we go right. We are told that, "faith is … the evidence of things not seen." Faith can see what is unseen to the natural eye.
If faith is not sight, what holds it up? Not feeling, not proof, but God's own testimony.
In Scripture, faith itself is simply believing God. It is accepting His word because He says it. It rests not on visible evidence or on reasoning, but on God's authority.
There is a difference between picturing heaven and knowing it is there.
Faith is not imagination. A poet may imagine heaven, as you can see in many poems; but this is mere fiction and does not exist. Faith knows what is real. A real glorified Jesus; a real city, whose builder and maker is God. Faith puts us in living connection with a real, living Lord, who has triumphed over death.
The first readers had Temple worship all around them. Their old friends had a taunt ready.
His old friends say to him, "You are surely a fool. Here is our Temple. The sacrifices go up and the silver trumpets sound. We have the ancient worship God Himself set up, and priests descended straight from Aaron. You can see our religion; you can smell it; you can hear it; we have the real thing. You have got only a little upper room, where your Master gathered His disciples. Now He is gone. Where has He gone? Really you have got nothing, you are running after mere ideas." … A few years after this letter, the Roman armies came and swept the whole shadow system off the map.
Faith is not just certainty about the future. It brings the future into present experience.
Faith gives present confidence in the future we hope for. In the same way it gives proof of things not seen. We look, according to the word and in the Spirit of God, at the things that are not seen and eternal. There is not only certainty but present enjoyment.
- Description, not definition — the verse shows what faith does, not what faith is. The thing itself stays God's secret.
- Word first — faith begins by accepting what God says because He says it, not on visible evidence or reasoning.
- Conviction next — "evidence" means conviction. Faith is not blindness but the opening of the eyes to what is real and unseen.
- Substance now — what you only hope for becomes solid today, so you can live on a promise before you receive it.
- Enjoyment already — faith gives more than certainty about the future; it gives present enjoyment of it. The visible religion their friends boasted in was swept away. What looked like "nothing" is what lasted.
For in [the power of] this the elders have obtained testimony.
This chapter lists the heroes of faith. It opens by naming what they gained: not fame among people, but God's own commendation. Older translations read, "by it the elders obtained a good report." So who are these "elders"? And what won them God's approval?
The word points back to people the first readers knew well. One writer asks what their reputation rested on:
That familiar expression shows he was writing to Hebrew Christians. They could look back on the fathers and call them "the elders," whose history they knew well. "The elders" of the Old Testament had obtained a good report by faith. What was the basis of their reputation? Was it any special worth in themselves? Not in the judgment of God. And faith always looks at things as God looks at them.
The same title belongs to a heavenly company:
"Elders" seems a fitting description for the heavenly redeemed. Hebrews 11 already applies it to the Old Testament saints. Though they obtained witness through faith, they did not receive the promise. God has provided some better thing for us, so that apart from us they should not be made perfect.
The commendation is not a reputation these people built.
Through it also the men of old obtained a good report — of course in God's history of things, not in man's. In Scripture it is easy to see what made these old worthies what they were: faith. How complete the contrast between the same men when faith energized them, and when it was at a low ebb in them!
The verse credits one thing only. That matters, because these lives were far from spotless.
It was not by their works, or by their lives, but by their faith that they obtained a good report. They were men and women with the same passions as ours. Their lives were marred by many a failure, and their works sometimes deserved blame. Still, despite all failure, they were marked by faith in God.
The first readers were Jews who leaned on the law. One writer puts a question to them:
"For by it the elders obtained a good report." Did legal-minded Jews consider this? Rigid law-keeping did not clothe the lives or works of the most outstanding Old Testament saints with such striking beauty. A genuine, active faith in God did.
The "it" of verse 2 points back to verse 1. So what is this faith?
Some people create a problem for themselves by wrongly assuming that we have here a definition of faith. That is not the aim. This is a description of faith's power, range, and effect. In Scripture, faith is believing God. It means accepting His word because He says it — not on visible evidence, not on reasoning, but on God's authority.
This faith was never just an idea in the head:
All through this chapter the writer speaks of faith in a practical way. "By it the elders obtained a good report." In every case he mentions, faith was so real and practical that it marked the man out.
Verse 2 opens what verse 39 closes. So where does this good report leave them now?
In the past they lived by faith. Today they have a good report. In the future they will enjoy the reward when they enter the promised blessings. The blessing of these Old Testament saints will be great. Yet God has provided some "better thing" for the Christian.
- The principle — Faith is believing God. You take His word on His authority alone — not on visible evidence, not on reasoning.
- The people — "The elders" are the fathers of the Old Testament. God honoured them not for any worth of their own, but because they looked at things the way He looks at them.
- The praise — God keeps this record of history, not people. The same men look very different when their faith is at a low ebb.
- The proof — Failure marred their lives, and their works sometimes deserved blame. Faith still won them a good report. Law-keeping never did.
- The prospect — They lived by faith. They hold a good report today. They still wait for the promise. God has provided something better for us, and they will not be made perfect apart from us.
By faith we apprehend that the worlds were framed by [the] word of God, so that that which is seen should not take its origin from things which appear.
The chapter that lists the heroes of faith does not begin with a hero. It begins with the universe. Faith, it says, is how anyone understands where the universe came from.
The verse does not say "by faith we believe." It says we understand. One writer notes how surprising that is. Faith deals with what we cannot see, yet here only faith explains the world we do see.
Verse 3 begins, "Through faith WE understand …" and it sets the things seen in creation before us. This is a very significant statement! In the days of the apostles Christians clearly shared one faith: "the worlds were framed by the Word of God." Is it the faith of all Christians today? We have just seen that faith is "the conviction of things not seen." Now we find that only faith gives us a right understanding of the things we do see.
Older translations read "worlds" where the ESV reads "universe." Writers have asked whether the word means ages or the material world. One argues that the verse's closing words settle it.
The word "worlds" may include ages. But the material world is certainly included in it. It may mean the worlds governed by successive ages. Still, no competent mind can seriously deny that the whole universe is in view. "The worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen" — which would not be true if only an age were meant — "were not made of things which do appear."
The verse does not just say God made the worlds. It says He made them by His word. A word puts a mind into speech.
This is not a mere belief that this present universe was created by God — of course, we believe that. It says, "by the word of God." The word is the expression of the mind and thoughts of God. So by faith we do not merely believe the fact that God made the worlds by His word. We understand that the thoughts and purpose of a divine Person found expression in creation, and that all was not merely the effect of divine power. So in Genesis 1 we read again and again, "And God said." … Chapter 1 of this letter shows us that the Son created all things, and that He is the appointed Heir of all things.
The last clause rules out an old idea: that the stuff of the universe always existed and only took new shapes.
God spoke, and brought things into existence. At the command of the Almighty created things appeared. They did not evolve out of things that already existed. Matter is not eternal. The writer is dealing here with the origin of the universe. He is not describing the earth emerging later out of chaos to be prepared as man's home. We are to believe what God has told us. This is surely reasonable. What creature witnessed the act of creating? What could we know of the origin of created things if we were left to human reason alone? … So we must rest on revelation for the distant past. Will it then be unreasonable to take God's word about the future?
Human theories of origin did not just happen to fail. The subject lies outside what reason can reach.
Here faith is connected with creation. "Nothing can come out of nothing" — that is man's wisdom! The philosopher could never have found out for himself how "the worlds were framed." Reason knows nothing of creation. "By faith we understand," but man's way of accounting for it led to pantheism, atheism, and so on. Men have now gained some knowledge of it from the Bible. Without Scripture it could never be known clearly or with certainty.
What the learned world argues over, a new believer already holds.
What you are left with is the simple fact stated here: "Through faith we understand" the very things the world cannot understand. The world stumbles over them, gropes in darkness, and loses its footing where it once stood firm. All that uncertainty for the world becomes absolute assurance for us. The simplest new believer in Christ knows that the "worlds were framed" by the word of God. "The things which are seen" — the visible world around us, its organised life, everything in it that witnesses to design — "were not made of things that do appear."
- Word. Creation came by God speaking — not power alone, but the mind and purpose of a divine Person put into speech.
- Worlds. Older versions read "worlds" here. Whatever else the word covers, it takes in the visible universe — the closing clause proves it.
- Nothing. What is seen did not come from what was already there. Matter is not eternal; it had a beginning.
- Faith. No creature watched the beginning. Reason cannot reach it. Understanding comes only by believing what God has said.
- Assurance. The youngest believer rests where the world's wisest still stumble. The God we trust for the distant past can be trusted for what is ahead.
By faith Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained testimony of being righteous, God bearing testimony to his gifts, and by it, having died, he yet speaks.
Hebrews 11 opens its record of faith with Abel, whose short story settles the first question every sinner faces: how can anyone approach God? He brought an offering, God accepted it, his brother killed him — and this verse shows what made the difference, and why he still speaks.
(Older translations word parts of this verse differently — "a more excellent sacrifice," "God testifying of his gifts." The writers quoted below use that older wording.)
The two brothers are not presented here as a good man and a bad man. The contrast lies somewhere else.
The emphasis in Abel's faith is not on his personal character, and not on the fruit of his life. It is on the "more excellent sacrifice than Cain." That is what distinguishes the two men. They are not held up to us, one as wicked, and the other as righteous… He receives that witness by what? Not by his works, not by his faithfulness or his character, but by the offering he brought.
Their work did not settle it either. As one writer puts it, Abel's job as a shepherd "did not make his moral state better than Cain's as a farmer. In God's sight there was no difference; they were both sinners." (The Bible Treasury)
Genesis says Abel brought "of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat portions." Older translations read "and of the fat thereof." Those few words carry the weight.
Abel's sacrifice was excellent because of what it admitted: his own place as a sinner before God, under the sentence of death. He did not bring the firstlings of his flock alive. The words that follow show this: "and of the fat thereof." … Abel did in principle what the tax collector did in the story the Lord told in Luke 18:13, and the same happy result followed in both cases.
Faith needs something to hold on to. Abel offered "by faith," and the writers trace what he believed back to God clothing Adam and Eve in animal skins.
It shows us that his offering was an act of faith — the first to be put on record. Now faith lays hold on what God has revealed… Abel understood the meaning of the coats of skins. By his offering he admitted that he was a sinner under the death sentence. He could only come to God on the ground of the death of a victim. Cain had no faith. He ignored this, and approached under false pretences.
The verse is careful about what God bore witness to. It was not Abel himself.
Abel received witness that he was righteous — "God testifying of his gifts." Notice, God did not testify of Abel. If He had, He would have had to testify of his guilt, for Abel was a sinner, as Cain was. But God testified of his gifts. They pointed forward to the Lord Jesus Christ, and because of Him God counted Abel righteous.
Yet the witness given to the gift reached the man who brought it. As one writer notes, "It is not only the sacrifice that God accepts, but Abel who comes with the sacrifice. He receives from God this testimony, that he is righteous." (J. N. Darby)
Abel's certainty rested on God's verdict about his offering. Ours rests on God's verdict about Christ's sacrifice.
If we look anywhere else for evidence that we are righteous — at our feelings, our experiences, or even our faith — we are bound to end up uncertain. God bears no witness to any of these things, because none of them is perfect… God bears His witness to the perfect sacrifice of Christ. We find perfect certainty in God's witness, and here we can safely rest.
The phrase about a dead man speaking is often borrowed for tributes to godly lives. Two small words rule that out.
It is not merely the example, the devotedness, the life of piety. What was it by which Abel speaks? "By it," that is, by the sacrifice which he brought. Abel has been speaking from that day to this. He speaks wherever people faithfully preach Christ's gospel. He says: never approach God without a sacrifice. You can only come to Him through the blood of a Substitute. And so Abel speaks "by it" of the great fundamental truth that redemption is the only remedy for sin.
- Faith first. The verse runs in order: faith, sacrifice, witness, righteousness, speaking. Everything starts with faith — and that is what Cain never had.
- Sacrifice second. Abel's offering admitted that death was the sinner's due, and it pointed to the death of Christ.
- Witness third. God testified to the gift, not the giver — which is why He could declare a guilty man righteous.
- Righteousness fourth. God's verdict was about Abel's standing, not his character. The same verdict now rests on the perfect sacrifice of Christ.
- Speaking last. Faith, sacrifice, witness and righteousness come first — then Abel speaks. He still speaks wherever the gospel is preached: no one may come to God without a sacrifice.
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 has the testimony that he had pleased God.
By faith Enoch left the world without dying. Genesis says only that God took him; Hebrews expands it. Two questions follow. What does it mean to be "taken up" (older translations say "translated")? And how could a man know, while still on earth, that God was pleased with him?
Scripture uses the word for ordinary transfers too, not only for miracles.
Scripture uses this term to mean a "change of place or status." Abner threatened to move the kingdom from the house of Saul to David, 2 Sam. 3:10. The believer is delivered from the power of darkness and is transferred into the kingdom of God's dear Son, Col. 1:13. Enoch was translated without dying, Heb. 11:5.
Genesis tells the ending in a handful of words.
He was "translated" to God. The brief record of Genesis is that at the end of the 300 years "he was not; for God took him." This is expanded in the New Testament. There we learn that faith was the energy in which Enoch walked with God, and in which at last he was carried into God's presence. After three centuries of walking with God it must have seemed simple and natural when one day "God took him." Enoch exchanged his home on earth for the very home of God Himself.
The chapter puts Enoch straight after Abel, and Kelly compares the two.
Faith does not always take the same shape, though it is the same divine principle working in man by the Spirit of God. So in the next witness we see the power of life, not the sense of death... Enoch looked to the same Messiah Abel did. He knew, as Abel did, that the woman's Seed must be bruised. But he also knew and felt sure that He would bruise the serpent's head. He saw life triumphant over the one who had the power of death. In that faith he walked, and he pleased God well. So his end on earth was not by death like Abel, but by a power of life that was his alone.
That life showed itself first in how he lived, and only then in how he left.
Then the life shows itself in the walk, and the power of that life is that he does not die at all... Enoch is not found, for God took him — death does not touch him at all. The power of death is done away.
Enoch preached judgment to a violent generation. Some read this phrase as a rescue just in time.
Reading verse 5, we cannot help feeling that Enoch's three hundred years of walking with God and his bold witness for God was about to end in violent death at the hands of the sinners before the flood. Just then God stepped in and translated him. They were after him, but before the blow could fall, "he was not; for God took him." God did not step in for Abel, who died a martyr's death. He did step in for Enoch. This man deeply displeased the men of his age, but he pleased God so much that He took him into His presence beyond the reach of his enemies.
Hole offers this as a likely reading, not a certainty.
Enoch knew where he stood with God before he left.
Verse 4 tells us that before Abel was slain he had the testimony that he was righteous. Verse 5 tells us that Enoch before he was translated had the testimony that he pleased God. One was right with God and he knew it. The other was agreeable to God and he knew it. Both knew on divine testimony.
Enoch prophesied judgment and was gone before it fell.
Enoch bore this witness a little before the flood, as Elijah did long after it. Both lived in times of great and growing wickedness. Both were prophets of a judgment that would not sleep. Both were taken on high without dying. Their removal points to the great translation ahead. It will be the portion of all the living saints who remain, when the Lord Himself comes down for them from heaven. They will be caught up together with the dead saints, raised to meet the Lord in the air.
If the same removal is ahead, the same walk belongs to now.
His life, separate from evil, was a testimony to the character of God, and God took him. His faith is connected with his translation, for he lived as one who did not belong to this world, but to another scene suited to God. And should not all this mark those who are awaiting their translation to heaven at any moment? Strictly speaking, the Christian has only one business here: to walk with God, to please God, to obey Him, and glorify Him.
- Walk. Three hundred years with God ended in one more step — from his home to God's.
- Life. Abel's faith owned death; Enoch's showed the power of life, so that death never touched him at all.
- Testimony. Before he went he knew God was pleased with him, and he knew it on divine testimony.
- Rescue. "Was not found" reads to some as a search cut short: God took him beyond the reach of his enemies.
- Hope. What happened to Enoch is held out as the portion of living saints caught up to meet the Lord.
But without faith [it is] impossible to please [him]. For he that draws near to God must believe that he is, and [that] he is a rewarder of them who seek him out.
The line just before says that Enoch pleased God, and this verse explains how: only faith can please Him. It then names two things anyone who comes to God must believe — that He exists, and that He rewards those who seek Him.
Genesis never says that Enoch believed. Commentators show how the writer of Hebrews works back from what Genesis does say.
The account in Genesis says nothing about Enoch's faith, but it tells us twice that he "walked with God." That is what the apostle seems to point to when he says that, before God took Enoch away, "he was commended as having pleased God." From that commendation the apostle argues that Enoch must have had faith. Without faith it is impossible to please God.
The logic runs one way: if Enoch pleased God, he must have had faith. Nothing else could have done it.
Take away real belief in God, and religious activity becomes play-acting. The verse splits into a starting point and an outworking.
Suppose someone does not really believe that God exists. Then his religious approach to God is pure hypocrisy. Faith is a true recognition of God. Nothing less than that can please Him. This is the basic essential. The last part of the verse shows faith at work, diligently seeking God. God will reward that seeking, because He is faithful.
One writer links this verse to what Scripture says about "the flesh" — human nature left to itself:
The flesh never trusts God. Its mind is hostile to Him... So its independence turns out to be hostility toward God. Because it seeks its own will, it does not and cannot submit to His law... "Those who are in the flesh cannot please God." God's delight is in the Man who always sought and did God's will, not His own.
Many people conclude on reflection that some God must be behind everything. That conclusion is not what this verse asks for.
Even in these doubting days, many people cannot explain how everything came to exist without assuming that some sort of God exists somewhere. But that is reason, not faith. Only faith puts us in the presence of the living God. He knows, He sees, He acts, He makes Himself known, and He even rewards those who diligently seek Him.
We do not learn the two halves of this verse the same way. The world around us can teach one; only God can teach the other.
Whoever draws near to God "must believe that He exists." Man ought to know that much from the witness of His works (see Romans 1:19-20). But the second half — "and that He rewards those who seek Him" — a sinner could never know unless God's own gracious word told him.
Talk of God rewarding people can sound like earning. One writer answers that by asking where such wording belongs.
"He rewards those who diligently seek Him." Again, I say it plainly: you would never have found faith described that way in Romans 4. "What legal language!" some would say if they read it in a book. But here it is beautiful. The faith of a believer is a working thing. Will God ever be in debt to any man? No. He pays those who sow generously.
Another writer turns the verse into a personal test. Older translations read "diligently seek Him," and he presses that word. Faith is not one decision left behind in the past:
Faith is not an initial act and done with. Faith is the motive spring of the whole Christian life... Note the word, "diligently"—diligently seek Him. Does that characterize you and me?
The verse also carries a straight word of assurance. God has a history of moving toward people who were genuinely looking for Him.
God never fails an expectant heart... He sent a Philip to the eunuch in the desert of Gaza. He sent a Peter to the centurion, in the town of Caesarea. He sent a Paul to a woman who sold purple cloth, on the edge of Philippi. And He will send a message to whoever reads these lines, if that person is truly seeking God's salvation.
- Faith first. Nothing pleases God without it. Enoch pleased God, so the writer of Hebrews concludes that Enoch had faith.
- Faith recognises. Believing "that He is" means the living God who sees and acts, not a God argued into existence by reasoning.
- Faith is told. Creation can testify that God exists; only His own word tells a sinner that He rewards those who search for Him.
- Faith works. "Diligently" makes faith the driving spring of a whole life, not a single act finished long ago.
- Faith is met. God never fails an expectant heart. He sent Philip, Peter and Paul to people who were searching, and He still sends His message to anyone truly seeking Him.
By faith, Noah, oracularly warned concerning things not yet seen, moved with fear, prepared an ark for the saving of his house; by which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which [is] according to faith.
Noah is the third name in this chapter's roll of faith. God warned him of a flood no one had ever seen. What followed was years of building, a household saved, a world sentenced, and a man named heir of a righteousness he did not yet hold.
Nothing Noah could see backed up the warning. Here faith and sight part company.
The word of God brings His light to shine on everything by which man's heart is deceived. But only faith will be "warned by God" when the things He speaks of are "as yet unseen." Nature goes by what it sees; its senses rule it. Faith goes by the pure word of God — an inestimable treasure in this dark world! This gives stability, whatever outward appearances may be. When God spoke to Noah of coming judgment, there was no sign of it. It was "as yet unseen." But the word of God made it real and present to the heart that could mix that word with faith.
Not every fear is of the same kind.
The verse states plainly that fear moved Noah. The goodness of God does lead to repentance, as Romans 2:4 says. He shows that goodness in His forbearance and patience with guilty man. Yet fear of coming judgment has often acted powerfully too, and Noah's case is an example. It was fear of the right kind. It was not the helpless alarm the rest of that generation no doubt knew when the flood came and swept them all away. It was the fear that sprang from faith in God's warning word.
The fear did not stay inside him. It came out as years of labour, watched by people who saw no reason for it.
Here faith connects with work in the face of judgment. Noah worked because he believed God. The dreadful reality of God's judgment stirred his soul. Light motives did not prompt his labour in building the ark, or his preaching while he did it. "Godly fear" did. God had spoken, and God would make good His word. Only Noah's house was saved; others despised both his long preaching and his amazing labours in building the ark. But the weight of popular opinion was only folly in this case: all was swept away in the flood.
Noah preached during those years. Yet the verse ties his condemning of the world to something else.
He did not condemn the world by rebuking the actions of the wicked. That would be easier, and it would place him on the judgment seat. He condemned the world by his actions, by his life. That is a higher thing, and it reveals the whole spring of his being — faith.
The verdict was not Noah's to pass. God had already announced it, and every day of building agreed with it.
Noah realised that the sentence of doom had gone out from God's lips. He accepted it, and in his turn he condemned the world by building the ark as a refuge from the coming disaster. Every nail, as he drove it home, was a token of salvation for himself and his house, but a token of condemnation for the world.
Genesis already calls Noah righteous, so the closing phrase looks odd — why is he only an heir of righteousness?
Verse 4 has told us that "By faith Abel… was commended as righteous"; that is, God accounted him righteous then and there. He was righteous, not merely an heir of righteousness. Noah too was righteous; we are told so in Genesis 7:1; yet this does not clash with what we are told here. There could be no revelation of "the righteousness which is by faith" until Christ had died and risen again, as we see in Romans 3:21-22 and Philippians 3:9. So this verse views that righteousness as a future thing, and Noah by his faith became heir to it.
Enoch was taken away before the flood. Noah stayed and went through it.
Enoch had warned others, and was himself caught up to heaven, before the flood came and took away all except those in the ark. Noah had a warning from God about things not yet seen. He himself was warned, and moved with godly fear. The godly Jewish remnant will be the same at the end of the age. They pass through that solemn time of divine judgment. They come out to inherit the earth, and the righteousness that is according to faith. The world lacked that righteousness, and so stood condemned. Waiting to believe the prophecy until it came true would have ruined Noah, as it ruined that generation. So it will be with the world again, in a day that is hurrying toward us.
- Warned — God spoke first, about a flood with no visible sign. Faith goes by that word, not by what the senses can confirm.
- Feared — Noah's fear grew out of believing the warning, not out of panic. It drove him toward the refuge.
- Worked — belief became years of labour, despised by everyone outside his own household.
- Condemned — he sentenced the world by building, not by scolding it. Every nail agreed with the verdict God had already spoken.
- Inherited — he came through the judgment, not above it. He came out heir of a righteousness that Christ's death and resurrection would later reveal.
By faith Abraham, being called, obeyed to go out into the place which he was to receive for an inheritance, and went out, not knowing where he was going.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
By faith he sojourned as a stranger in the land of promise as a foreign country, having dwelt in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with [him] of the same promise;
Hebrews 11 has just shown Abraham leaving home for a place he had never seen; verse 9 shows what he did once he arrived. The surprise is that arriving changed nothing on the outside. God had promised him this land, yet he lived in it like a foreigner, in a tent, alongside Isaac and Jacob.
Obedience brought Abraham to Canaan. Living there took something more:
If faith first obeys, faith also continues. Here is the steady, plodding life of faith. It is not a settling down among earthly comforts, but a pilgrim path, as Abraham's tent bore witness. Mere material, present advantage is no object at all for faith.
He lived there "as in a foreign land" — a guest, not an owner. And this was the very country God had given him:
He was a pilgrim, not a settler in the land. He was as much a pilgrim in the land as before he came there... God's promise of the land brought him out of his own land, out of what stands as a picture of the earth. But in Canaan God raised his eyes to heaven, instead of letting them rest on the world. And this is exactly what the letter to the Hebrews shows us. It shows not only the faith that brought him into the land, but the faith that kept him a stranger there.
You can fold a tent up and carry it away. It was the open confession of a man not yet home. Lot, Abraham's nephew, shows what happens when someone drops that confession:
Notice how verse 9 keeps up the pilgrim and stranger character: living in tents was the mark of a stranger and a pilgrim... Abraham lived in a tent. Lot did too at first, but he did not keep up the pilgrim character. First he pitched his tent towards Sodom, then sat in the gate, and had a house in Sodom. Abraham kept his tent, because he looked for a city. He knew there was such a city. And the Holy Spirit adds, "whose designer and builder is God."
The one piece of Canaan Abraham ever owned was a grave. That is the proof, not the exception:
When he got to this land of promise, what did he find there? He did not have so much as a foot of land he could call his own. It is very significant that the only part he ever owned was a tomb, a burial place. It reminded him that in life he had nothing, but it was also an anticipation of resurrection... His dwelling was in a form that suggested his home was not here.
The three of them shared one promise, and they were sure of it. That certainty showed itself in bold action:
Abraham lived in tents with Isaac and Jacob. That was indeed so. But then, they were heirs together of the promise. Of this they were, in the middle of their pilgrim days, fully persuaded. And so, on fitting occasions, they can act on that full persuasion. They take up the dignities and places the promise warranted, in a way that nothing but such persuasion can account for.
Jacob was the least consistent of the three, yet the verse counts him in:
It is very interesting to see Jacob included in this pilgrim life. Jacob lived only a small part of his life in the land of Canaan. Through his own waywardness, he spent much of it outside his own land. Yet what God sees here is his life of faith in a tent, as well as that of Abraham and Isaac.
Writers apply this to believers now, with one difference. The call today does not move you to another country:
In all this Abraham's history pictures the position of the believer today. It is full of instruction for us. We are not called to leave any particular city or country, nor to come out of our family circles. The heavenly calling that has reached us is more sweeping than this. It involves our being "delivered from the present evil age" (Galatians 1:4)... Our links with the present evil age must be cut. Yet we still live in the same place and the same circumstances as before our conversion.
- Faith continues. The same faith that obeyed the call kept Abraham going afterwards. It was a steady, plodding pilgrim path, not a settling down.
- Faith keeps you a stranger. He was a stranger before he arrived. The striking thing is that he stayed one inside the land God had given him.
- The tent confesses it. A folding home was the outward mark of the pilgrim. Lot traded his for a house in Sodom; Abraham never did.
- The grave holds the claim. The only ground Abraham owned was a burial plot. It proved he owned nothing in life, and it looked ahead to resurrection.
- The promise is shared. Isaac and Jacob were heirs with him and sure of it, free to act on that certainty — even Jacob, who spent much of his life away from the land.
for he waited for the city which has foundations, of which God is [the] artificer and constructor.
Genesis never tells us what was going on inside Abraham while he lived in a tent in the land God had promised him. Hebrews 11 does. He owned no house and no land, and this verse gives the reason: his eye was on a city that God Himself builds.
The verse opens with "for," so it explains what came before. One writer traces what faith did in Abraham once he reached the land.
Faith led him into the land, though it was unnamed and unknown to him. Once he was in it, faith looked to receive it from God another day, while he was content to be a foreigner who did not yet own a foot of it. But faith also learned to wait for a brighter and better scene. For the city here described stands in contrast with all that is earthly or can be shaken and removed. It is the scene of heavenly glory... The word he heard made him look up. He believed, so he did not rush, and he would not be put to shame.
Abraham lived among real cities with real walls. The word "foundations" is not about engineering.
Abraham spent his life outside the cities of men because he had in view the city of God that is yet to be — "a city which has foundations." The point seems plain: the cities of men lack foundations. Their physical foundations may be sound enough, but the right moral foundations are missing. Unless righteousness and love lie at the base, no city can last or endure. Sooner or later such cities decay, or violent upheavals from inside or outside sweep them away.
One writer shows how much hangs on a single word in the original.
In the original it is not "he looked for a city," just some city. It is "he looked for the city" — the well-known one, and there is only one such city. He looked for the city that had the foundations, because they are well-known foundations. There could be only one kind of foundation for a city like that. In Revelation you find it in precious stones, which speak of God glorified in Christ. Christ Himself is the foundation of that heavenly city. His atoning work is the basis on which it rests, as everything else does.
Another writer sets the same point against the tents of verse 9:
As to Hebrews 11:10 — I take the "city" to be very general in contrast with tents (v. 9) — a stranger in the land. But the only city is the heavenly Jerusalem — itself a figure. It is not "a city," but "the city."
The verse gives God two titles. They cover two stages of one work.
He looked for a city that has foundations, and its Architect and Builder is God. He devised the plan, and He carries it out... The mention of "the foundations" brings before us the very city of Revelation, with its twelve jewelled foundations, like the high priest's breastplate. They are the glorious lights and perfections of God's character. A city built on these must last for ever.
Genesis never records God telling Abraham about a city.
This goes beyond anything the Old Testament records about Abraham's expectations. It shows that faith looked further than what God had openly revealed at the time. No one had ever mentioned the heavenly city then. But faith could see that the God who cannot decay would provide what cannot decay, something above everything a person can take in by the senses... So faith wants nothing less than what is wholly God's own work. It will not be disappointed.
The verse is not only about the future. It explains a way of living.
Abraham wanted no place in this world. With his tent and his altar he waited for the city that has foundations, the city God designs and builds. His tent marked him out as a pilgrim and stranger before people. His altar spoke of him as a worshipper before God. Our tent and altar must go together.
- Looked — the verse explains the tent. Abraham stayed a stranger because his eye was on a city that nothing can shake or remove.
- Foundations — men's cities may be well built. Without righteousness and love at the base, they decay or collapse.
- The city — not "a city" but "the city," the only one of its kind. It rests on Christ and His atoning work.
- God — He is both architect and builder: He drew the plan and He carries it out, so the result is entirely His workmanship.
- Waited — faith reached past what God had openly revealed, and it will not be disappointed. Meanwhile tent and altar go together: pilgrim before people, worshipper before God.