And what more do I say? For the time would fail me telling of Gideon, and Barak, and Samson, and Jephthah, and David and Samuel, and of the prophets
Hebrews 11 has moved slowly, name by name, from Abel to Rahab — and then at verse 32 the pace breaks. The writer gathers six names into one breath, adds "the prophets," and admits he has run out of time. Why these six, and why in this order?
One writer traces three stages in the chapter, with this verse opening the last:
Hebrews 11:23–31 gives the sevenfold picture of the "course" of faith. Here the scene changes. We are no longer in the foreign land with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. We are travelling through the wilderness to Canaan, brought out by Moses and brought in by Joshua. Hebrews 11:32 completes the series by giving us the fight of faith in the land of Canaan.
The writer's confession that time would fail him is not weariness but abundance:
So the apostle has traced many an example of genuine faith through a history they knew well. Now he finds his time too short to go into these precious things more fully.
The first four names belong to the days of the Judges, Israel's rulers. Anyone who knows that history notices the order is odd. One writer suggests why:
Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David and Samuel complete the list of the men of faith mentioned by name. Others have noticed that this list of names does not follow the historical order. In history Barak came before Gideon, and Jephthah before Samson. This may be to stress that in the days of the Judges the faith of Gideon was brighter than the faith of Barak, and that Samson's faith went beyond Jephthah's. David can be grouped with the Judges, since he too was a ruler. Samuel may be placed last to connect him with the prophets who came after the kings.
Another writer walks down that scale, judge by judge:
Gideon was a man whose heart and conscience were truly at work. Barak was so weak in faith that he would not go against the enemy without Deborah, and so he lost the honour God offered him. Yet weak Barak was not as stained as strong Samson. Samson's life was marked by his dealings with the Philistines. Only at the end, blind and broken in spirit, but humbled before God, did he achieve his most wonderful feat — and it cost him his life. Jephthah is lower still on the scale. He stains his victory with a pagan vow.
Barak is the test case. He would not fight without Deborah, and yet God names him:
Barak's faith is like that of many who can follow if someone else leads, though they cannot take first place. It is very gracious of God to name Barak in Hebrews 11:32 as one of the cloud of witnesses who had become victorious by their faith.
What earns a place in this chapter is one thing only:
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 feelings as we have. Their lives were spoiled by many a failure, and at times their actions deserved blame. Still, despite all their failure, faith in God marked them.
These names come from days of collapse. That is why they spoke to the first readers of this letter:
Now we come to the faith that shines among the ashes of a failed testimony. This should have spoken to the Hebrews of that day, as they realised that they were living in the last times. It should certainly speak to us too, who live in days when so much that was bright for God has fallen into ruin and decay. But even if many have fallen by the way; even if the shared testimony has decayed until there is only one here and there, only a little flickering lamp where there should have been light everywhere — faith still shines out in the ruin.
The names are not there for us to admire:
This list of names, the named and the unnamed together, along with the long list of the battles and victories of faith, is not meant to stir up our admiration for the people involved. It is meant to stir up our admiration for the God who sustained them and made them able. Indeed, if we read the history of the first four named, we cannot help being struck by how weak their faith was in many ways. Yet in certain clear cases they did act for God, and faith was plain to see.
- Pause — He stops the list because there is too much to tell, not too little. Verse 32 opens the fight of faith in the land.
- Order — The six names break the historical order. Commentators see a ranking of faith here: Gideon brightest, Jephthah lowest of the four judges.
- Grace — Barak hesitated, Samson was stained, Jephthah spoiled his victory with a pagan vow. Each is named for his faith, not for his record. Faith alone won the good report.
- Ruin — This is faith shining in the ashes of a failed testimony. That is why it speaks to anyone standing almost alone.
- God — The roll call aims our admiration past the men to the God who sustained and enabled them.
who by faith overcame kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped lions' mouths,
Hebrews 11 has been naming its witnesses one by one. At verse 32 the writer stops counting names and starts listing what faith did. Verse 33 packs whole lifetimes into four short phrases. What is such a roll call meant to do to the reader?
The names in verse 32 belong to people whose records include real collapse.
This list of names, and of those left unnamed, comes with a long list of the conflicts and conquests of faith. It is not meant to stir our admiration for the people involved, but for the God who sustained and enabled them. Read the history of the first four named, and their faith looks weak in many ways. Yet in certain clear cases they did act for God, and their faith showed. In other cases they broke down, and did not act by faith at all.
Look at the state Gideon was in when God called him.
Nothing could have been more wretched than Gideon's condition here. He was threshing wheat in secret, for fear of the Midianites, to feed his family! Yet here is a man the Spirit of God delights to mention. No man recorded his name, but God counts it worthy of a place in His record. The Spirit of God writes to magnify the grace of God, not to exalt man. He wants us to keep in mind such small details in the story of the soldiers of faith. Then we see what weak and unimportant tools God works with. He has always won His mightiest victories through such people, not through those with resources of their own.
Each phrase points back to a real event.
Gideon and his three hundred men fought the Midianites and Amalekites, who were as many as grasshoppers. In the end Midian went down and never oppressed Israel again. Barak broke the power of Jabin, king of Hazor, and that Canaanite kingdom was heard of no more. Samson began the fight with the Philistines on his own. Samuel, and after him David, carried it on with great success. Jephthah refused to give up any of Israel's land when the king of Ammon demanded it. Then we are reminded of Daniel in the lions' den.
Older translations read "wrought righteousness" where the ESV has "enforced justice." Both middle phrases rest on one thing.
Practical righteousness, in their ways and in ours, is never maintained except by faith. For only God can lead us in a straight and true path. By faith we obtain His promises now, just as they did then.
There is a pattern in when those promises came.
"Obtained promises." Example after example was given in their history of promises obtained from God when everything on man's side was hopeless.
Daniel is the best-known case. What held the lions back?
Here is the whole secret of his protection and deliverance. God produced faith in his soul, and that faith brought God in. God shielded His servant from the hatred of his enemies. He subdued and held back the natural, ravenous instincts of the lions. The apostle has Daniel in mind when he speaks of the prophets: "who through faith… stopped the mouths of lions." This was one of the victories of faith. It was meant to encourage the people of God to trust Him and count on Him at all times.
The list is not just history. Each item has a match in the Christian's life.
"Subduing kingdoms" would have a parallel in the New Testament: we "destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ." As to "wrought righteousness," here are "the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left" — righteousness acted on firmly in the face of wrongdoing. "Obtained promises" is a positive result of pleasing God, God revealing Himself in grace to the soul. "Stopped the mouths of lions" is answered in 1 Peter 5:8: "Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour." Sober watchfulness and steadfast faith are the safeguards.
Much of this faith shone when God's people as a whole had failed.
Now we come to the faith that shines among the ashes of a failed testimony. That should have spoken to the Hebrews of that day, who knew they were living in the last times. It should speak to us too, who live in days when so much that was bright for God has decayed. Many have fallen by the way. The testimony as a whole has decayed until there is only one here and there — a little flickering lamp where there should have been a blaze. Yet faith still shines in the ruin, and that ruin is the harvest of what God's people themselves have sown. Faith lays hold on God in it.
- Weakness first. God wins His mightiest victories through people with no resources of their own — a frightened man threshing wheat in hiding.
- Faith next. Faith brings God in. That was the whole secret of Daniel's survival. It is also the only way practical righteousness is kept up.
- God gets the credit. The list is not here to make us admire Gideon, Barak, Samson or Jephthah. They broke down elsewhere. It points us to the God who sustained and enabled them.
- Promises at the end of hope. Again and again they came when everything on man's side was finished.
- Your turn. The kingdoms are now proud thoughts. The lion is now the devil. The answer is still sober watchfulness and steadfast faith, shining brightest in a day of ruin.
quenched [the] power of fire, escaped [the] edge of the sword, became strong out of weakness, became mighty in war, made [the] armies of strangers give way.
Hebrews 11 stops naming names and starts naming deeds: fire that could not burn, weakness turned into power, armies driven off the field. Is this what faith always does, or what faith did in one particular period?
The verse gives no names, but each deed has an owner in Israel's history.
We are reminded of Daniel in the lions' den, and of the faith of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who were thrown into the burning fiery furnace. Elijah and Elisha escaped the edge of the sword. Jeremiah was an instance of one made strong out of weakness.
The men in Nebuchadnezzar's furnace did not escape the flames — they walked in them. What they found in there was more than survival.
"Quenched the power of fire." There we see the Hebrew young men in the blazing furnace. The idol-worshipping king Nebuchadnezzar had thrown them in. Instead of destruction, they found their bonds loosened. They also found the company of One whom the king himself says is "like the Son of God."
Prophets were hunted and got away. But that escape was not a promise that God shields every believer from violence.
Faith has found, in modern as in ancient times, a refuge from the arm of violence in God. We may expect both treachery and violence in a world where our calling is to be as sheep for slaughter. But He who hid His prophets from the anger of man, when it pleased Him, is the preserver of His people's earthly lives, at His wise discretion.
The phrase does not describe strong men. It describes men who knew they had nothing, and who kept going anyway.
"Made strong out of weakness," like Gideon. He felt himself powerless, and would have excused himself from leading a band of three hundred against a great army. Then, after the great victory over the Midianites, he still kept chasing the fleeing army, so that the victory would be complete. You remember the words: "faint, yet pursuing."
Weakness is not a stage the believer grows out of. It lasts, and the strength that meets it comes from outside.
Weakness is always the saint's condition until by faith he looks to Jesus as his strength. Faith made the fathers brave in their conflicts, when huge armies of foreigners fled before a handful of brave men. They were God's soldiers, and He was their shield. Their valour and their strength were all from Him, who made them worthy of the Name that was their banner.
Verse 34 sits at a hinge. Up to here the chapter praises what faith achieved. After it, the chapter praises what faith endured with no rescue.
After verse 32 the names begin to disappear, and the chapter reverses its earlier order. Examples of the power of faith come first, in verses 33, 34, and the first clause of 35. From there on the chapter celebrates the patience of faith.
The deeds are real, and the chapter honours them. But one writer warns against reading them as the pattern for Christian life now.
It may be useful to note the energy of faith in subduing kingdoms, in being made strong in war, and in putting armies or camps of foreigners to flight. All that fitted the time before the gospel. But it is in no way the model of what the Christian is now called to... In ordinary Christian experience, "made strong out of weakness" applies quite differently from its meaning long ago here. The ground of our difference is plain. Grace is now revealed and reigns as it did not until Christ came, died, rose, and took His seat in heaven.
The fight has moved, but it has not been called off.
We are called to a warfare, but our fight is no longer against flesh and blood. What once won earthly kingdoms must now work in another struggle. It is a struggle against rulers and authorities, against the powers behind the darkness of this world, against spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. By faith the Christian has to press his way into the enjoyment of the things that God in Christ declares to be his.
- Weakness first. Every victory here starts from nothing — Gideon with three hundred, Jeremiah, three men tied up and thrown in a furnace.
- Strength borrowed. The valour was real, but it was not theirs: they were God's soldiers, and He was their shield.
- Rescue on His terms. Deliverance came inside the flames, not around them; and God preserves His people's earthly lives at His own wise discretion.
- Power, then patience. The verse closes the list of what faith achieved. From the next verse on, the list turns to what faith bore with no rescue.
- Applied, not copied. Routing armies is not the Christian's calling now. The same borrowed strength now goes into a fight that is not against flesh and blood.
Women received their dead again by resurrection; and others were tortured, not having accepted deliverance, that they might get a better resurrection;
The same faith leads to two opposite outcomes here: some women get their children back alive, while others suffer torture and refuse release. Why does God record both, and what is the "better life" that made refusing rescue worth it?
The chapter has just listed faith's victories. At this verse the tone changes. One writer puts the two kinds of faith on the same level, and finds an honour in the suffering one.
Faith wins triumphs when it attacks sin and death with active energy. God marks with equal pleasure its gentle, steady endurance of undeserved sorrow and suffering... God has not always hidden His prophets. Sometimes He has honoured them by putting to their lips the cup that Jesus would later taste.
Another writer explains why rescue so often does not come.
Usually, though, God does not step in at once, and suffering follows... They endured. They did not accept the rescue that could have reached them if they had taken back their words or compromised. Faith suffered, but it carried them through.
Two mothers stand behind the first half of the verse. In one of them a writer sees a much older story repeated.
The Shunammite woman repeats, on a smaller scale, the story of Abraham and Sarah. The promised child was given to a woman with no natural hope of one, then taken away in death, and then raised again. We see something similar in the story of Elijah.
Should we expect such raisings today? One writer answers no, and points forward instead.
In these cases, to live was better than to die, because God was dealing with an earthly people. Faith has since learned that to depart and be with Christ is now far better than to stay on earth. So such displays of its power are no longer likely to be seen. Those who mourn will receive their dead back to life when God soon brings with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in Him (1 Thess. 4:14).
The release on offer was real, and so was the price of taking it.
These were not saved out of death. Their faith counted on the better resurrection. Not every martyr was rescued from the death that faced them... But they would not accept release at the price of loyalty to Him. He had called them to that better resurrection, and the eyes of their faith were fixed on it.
Believers long after the Old Testament faced the same terms.
They did not accept release, though it was offered to them if they would renounce Christ. Their faith triumphed in death, and they wait for the full victory in resurrection. "Of whom the world was not worthy" (Heb. 11:38) — that is God's estimate of every such faithful martyr.
Older translations, which these writers use, read "a better resurrection" where the ESV has "rise again to a better life". The word "better" points back to the first half of the verse: those sons came back to a life they would lose again.
A better resurrection means resurrection to life, not a return to this world. The Shunammite's son and the son of the widow of Zarephath only came back to this world.
Read the two halves together, and you see what these sufferers expected for their own bodies.
Compare and contrast the two statements, and it is hard to doubt the meaning. Some received their dead back from the grave, the well-known and much-loved body alive again. Others looked for their own bodies to be raised too, but in a different way and for a different end: never to die again, but to live for ever beyond death. A better resurrection indeed!
The verse names none of these sufferers. But heaven keeps their record.
The others who were tortured refused the release that men offered. They wait for a better resurrection still to come, and they are better known in heaven than on earth.
- Received. Faith once took children back out of death — a real gift, but a temporary one, since those raised would die again.
- Refused. Faith also turned down a genuine offer of release, because the price was loyalty to the One who had called them.
- Better. The better resurrection means life, not a return to this world. These bodies rise never to die again.
- Equal. God takes the same pleasure in quiet endurance as He does in faith's loudest victories.
- Remembered. Their names are missing from the page, but heaven knows them better than earth ever did.
and others underwent trial of mockings and scourgings, yea, and of bonds and imprisonment.
Hebrews 11 has just listed the victories of faith. Then the chapter turns: from verse 35 the same faith wins no rescue, and verse 36 names what "others" got instead — ridicule, the whip, chains, a prison cell.
One writer sets the two halves of the list side by side:
(Verses 33, 34). First, he points to incidents that show the power of faith. It subdues kingdoms and overcomes armies. It is strong in weakness and brave in fight. It triumphs over the power of nature, as represented by the lion, and quenches the violence of the elements such as fire. It even wins victory over death.
(Verses 35, 36). Second, the Apostle sets before us the endurance of faith. Under torture it refused to accept deliverance. In trial it endured mockings and scourgings, bonds and imprisonments.
The verse names mocking before flogging. Samuel Ridout weighs the two:
They had trial of something that may be harder to bear than physical suffering — the scorn of those who do not know our Lord. How keenly sensitive natures feel the slights put upon them! The neglect, the coldness, the sarcastic and condescending smile of pity — these are scourgings that bite deeper than the lash laid across the shoulders. But faith endures, and triumphs over it all.
If mocking is listed alongside flogging, then words are counted as violence — which turns the verse into a warning for anyone tempted to hand out that treatment:
Let us take care that we do not become persecutors. Some think there is no persecution except fire and sword; but there is persecution of the tongue. Reviling is called persecution: "men shall revile you and persecute you"; this is tongue persecution. "His words were softer than oil, yet were they drawn swords" (Ps. 55:21). You may kill a man in his name as well as in his person; a good name is as precious ointment... So the earliest saints endured the persecution of the tongue. They "suffered mocking" (Heb. 11:36).
Every earlier hero in the chapter has a name. From verse 35 the names stop. One writer says where they are kept:
This leads on to the last condition we are to look at — faith in times of persecution... Now names are unrecorded, but the acts of faith were never to be forgotten. So, though we cannot identify all those referred to, we are well assured that their names are remembered in heaven.
Another writer points to where the rest of that history is found:
The Old Testament does not give us the details of such history, at least in many of these cases. Yet no doubt such cases were not few. The records of later church history tell of many godly people who suffered these very things, and tortures even more cruel, for Christ's sake.
The hardest feature of the verse is not the suffering but the silence of heaven while it happens. One writer refuses to soften it:
In every age and in every country it has been so. We find the people of faith the objects of the hatred of man. But God owns this people... Here God gives His history of them. He does not interfere. He leaves them "destitute, afflicted, tormented." He does not meddle with the world, and the world goes on. It will not always be so, but that is the present fact... The world has departed from Him, and He will not own it.
The chapter puts rescue and chains side by side without explaining the difference. One writer traces the same pattern in two men and in two churches:
As we read in Hebrews 11:33-38, some are delivered and escape the edge of the sword; others are tortured, undergo trials, are slaughtered, or wander about. The mystery of God allows John the Baptist to perish in prison while Peter is rescued. The word to Smyrna is: "Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life." The word to Philadelphia is: "I will keep you from the hour of trial that is coming" (Rev. 2:10; 3:10).
- Same faith. The chapter does not switch topics at verse 35. Power that subdues kingdoms and endurance that absorbs chains are one faith with two faces.
- Scorn first. Mocking heads the list because it can cut deeper than the lash. Neglect, coldness and the pitying smile wound where the whip cannot reach.
- Tongues persecute. Reviling counts as persecution. So the verse warns the mocker as much as it honours the sufferer.
- Names kept. From here the names stop, but the acts are never forgotten. Earth did not record them; heaven does.
- No rescue promised. God does not always step in; one man dies in prison while another walks free. Faith shows itself in endurance, not in escape.
They were stoned, were sawn asunder, were tempted, died by the death of the sword; they went about in sheepskins, in goatskins, destitute, afflicted, evil treated,
The roll of faith in Hebrews 11 ends without names. Three deaths and one long homelessness fill their place. The verse forces a hard question: why did God let faith end this way?
Every earlier hero in the chapter is named. Here the record gives no names. Yet several of these deaths match people we can still identify.
Their names are not given, but God knows them all. He also knows the countless thousands of martyrs constantly added to this list… Some were stoned, as Zechariah (2 Chron. 24), and Jeremiah, according to tradition. Some were sawn in two, as Isaiah was under Manasseh. Some were killed with the sword, as Urijah was (Jer. 26:23), and James the brother of John (Acts 12). They could have worn silks and velvets. They could have lived in the palaces of princes — if they had denied God and believed the world's lie.
Stoning was not street violence. Israel's own law commanded it as a penalty. That is what makes its use against faithful people worse, not better.
The law required stoning for Jews guilty of idolatry, blasphemy, or other open rebellion against the LORD. That is what made the deaths of Naboth and of Zechariah so terrible. The wickedness lay wholly with those in high authority, who twisted the law to hurt saints. We can hardly imagine a worse or bolder wrong. Godly people died the death of the ungodly at the hands of ungodly rulers. It was done by clever lies or in uncontrolled rage.
Older translations add a fourth item here, between the sawing and the sword: "were tempted." The ESV does not carry it. What the temptation was is not spelled out, but the pattern is familiar from later persecutions.
"Were tempted." The kind of temptation is not stated. No doubt it was some offer of escape from suffering, if only they would give up Christ. This was tried again and again with martyrs for the name of Jesus during the pagan persecutions of the early Christians. It was tried too in the equally pagan public burnings in Spain. There, release was offered even after the victim stood in the flames, if only he would deny the truth that had set his soul free. We can well imagine how sharp such temptations were. Loved ones — wives, little children — all begged the father to stay with them, instead of sealing with his blood the faith he had confessed.
The verse turns from those who died to those left alive in animal skins.
Next comes the more drawn-out suffering in life of those who, for one reason or another, were not killed. "They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated." For some this was an even harder test of faith than a sudden death, whether by law or by violence.
There was a reason the world turned on them.
Whether before Christ or after Him, the solid fact remains: God has always had a line of sufferers who believed. It was their faith that made them objects of dislike and persecution. It was not so much that they condemned the world, its pursuits, pleasures, sins, or godlessness. It was the quietest and most telling witness of all — separation from the world to God and His word.
No rescue comes in this verse. Where was God while this happened?
In every age and in every country it has been so. We find the people of faith to be the objects of man's hatred. But God owns this people… Here God gives His own account of them. He does not step in. He leaves them "destitute, afflicted, mistreated." He does not interfere with the world. The world carries on. It will not always be so, but that is the present fact.
Ridout turns the list into a question for the reader.
What an army! No gold braid or uniform on them, no great glory and honour. There you see them in the caves and holes of the earth, dressed in sheepskins and goatskins. Is your place with them? Is that reproach worth more in your eyes than "the treasures of Egypt"? Faith will always link us with that company "of whom the world was not worthy." They are the ones Christ is not ashamed to call brothers.
- Unnamed, not unknown. Their names drop out of the record, but not out of God's memory. He knows every one, and the list is still growing.
- Killed by law. Stoning was Israel's legal penalty for blasphemy. The horror is that rulers used God's own law to kill God's own people.
- Tempted, not just tortured. Deny Christ, and you could live and go home to your children. That offer ran right through the suffering, and it cut deep.
- Living on is harder. Those left wandering in animal skins faced a longer test. For some, that slow suffering was harder than a quick death.
- God waits. He did not step in then, and He does not interfere with the world now. That is the present fact, and it will not always be so.
(of whom the world was not worthy,) wandering in deserts and mountains, and [in] dens and caverns of the earth.
This verse ends a long list of people whose faith cost them everything the world can offer — home, safety, even a name in the records. Then comes one short line of God's own verdict, which raises a question: why did the world treat faith like this?
The wandering here is not travel but expulsion. Nothing the world offered or threatened could move these people:
So they were often outcasts, roaming in deserts and mountains, and in dens and the caves or crevices of the earth. The same scenes repeated in pagan and papal persecutions after this letter was written. That needs no proof here. In the world's eyes they were unyielding and impossible to work with. Nothing won them: not wealth, ease, or honour. Nothing broke them: not slander, hatred, prison, or death. They refuse present glory. They remember who was crucified and by whom; they await His day and see it approaching.
The caves were real places. Palestine had many of them. Some were large enough to hide a man and his followers while their hunter walked in (Morrish Bible Dictionary).
The offence was rarely a loud attack on the world's morals. It was something quieter and harder to answer.
Still, one solid fact remains, before Christ or after: God has always had a line of sufferers who believed. And it was their faith which made them objects of dislike and persecution. It was not so much their attack on the world — on its pursuits, pleasures, wrongs, or godlessness. It was the quietest and most telling of all testimonies: separation from the world to God and His word... "Of whom the world was not worthy," though they were counted unworthy of a place in it, or even of life. But, as has been said, in condemning them it condemned itself; and God forgets neither.
The same pattern returns wherever people confess Christ. The world did not think Christians fit to live. It judged their Lord the same way when it crucified Him. The Holy Spirit answers by putting the true value on them, as He did on these earlier sufferers (A J Pollock).
The world speaks first, and the world speaks by driving people into holes in the ground. God speaks afterwards.
God came out and wrote their epitaph, and it reads: "Of whom the world was not worthy."
The sentence cuts two ways at once, and both edges matter:
One little parenthesis in the long chapter which records their testimony places at once a glorious tribute upon them and a fearful condemnation on those of the other side; it says, "Of whom the world was not worthy."
We cannot match much of what this verse describes to any story in the earlier Scriptures. Commentators differ on who is meant. Some point to believers who suffered after the last Old Testament prophet, in a time when pagan worship was forced on the Jews (F. B. Hole). Others widen the frame further:
The Old Testament does not give us the details of such history, at least in many of these cases. Yet such cases were doubtless not few. And the records of later Church history hold a multitude of godly people who suffered these very things, and tortures even more cruel, for Christ's sake. How full and how precious that word, "of whom the world was not worthy."
The chapter piles these details up on purpose. It speaks to people who were already suffering and tempted to quit.
How the apostle lets it all accumulate before the eyes of those he was addressing! It is as though he were saying: is your affliction worse than that of those who have gone before you? They were heirs of the same precious faith as yourselves... You see what the portion of faith is — nothing here, everything in the living God, everything in the future. You cannot get your portion here; you must wait for it too.
That waiting has a settlement day. They suffered at the world's hands, yet the world was not worthy of them. They were far above it, and this line hints at the reward waiting for them (F. B. Hole).
- Unworthy how — The world judged them unworthy of a home, a place, even of life. God turns the verdict around and calls the world unworthy of them.
- Cause — Their quiet separation to God and His word drew the hatred, not their protests. In condemning them, the world condemned itself.
- Verdict — The world spoke first and buried them in caves; God spoke last and wrote their epitaph.
- Reach — Most of these names are missing from the earlier record. But the pattern repeats in later history wherever the godly suffer for Christ.
- Result — Faith's portion is nothing here and everything in the living God. Those the world drove out turn out to be far above it.
And these all, having obtained witness through faith, did not receive the promise,
Hebrews 11 ends on a pause, not a triumph. Every name in its long list of faith won God's approval, yet not one received what was promised. That raises two questions: what did God say about them, and why did He hold back the fulfilment?
The chapter opens by commending the people of old, and it ends the same way. Older translations word it "obtained a good report." What earned the commendation was not their record.
By faith the people of old received their commendation. It was not their works or their lives that won this good report, but their faith. They were men and women with the same weaknesses as ours. Their lives were spoiled by many a failure, and at times their works deserved blame. Yet, despite all that failure, faith in God marked them. The end of the chapter reminds us again: it was by faith they received this good report.
And the "report" is not reputation among people. It belongs to another record entirely.
Through faith the men of old also received a good report — in God's record of things, of course, not in man's. Scripture shows plainly what made those heroes of old what they were: it was faith. What a perfect contrast between the same men when faith gave them energy and when faith ran low in them!
They were not left without promises. What they never had was possession of the thing promised.
Whatever the different circumstances, enemies, or sufferings of these believers, this is true of them all. God bore witness to them through their faith and gave them promises to sustain them. Still they did not receive the promise fulfilled — the fulfilment they and we all wait for. Meanwhile God had to bring in a new and better thing for us, while Christ, whom men rejected, is at the right hand of God on high.
Even the widest reach of their faith stayed unfulfilled — and the delay was deliberate.
Even though Abraham's faith reached beyond the promise and looked for the city with foundations, which God had prepared for them, they never entered it. It has not come yet. God would not bring them into their promised portion without us. They, like us, had to live by faith in it.
A natural objection follows. How could anyone today be better off than these great names?
How often people object, Do you mean to say that people like you are more blessed than faithful Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob? Is your portion richer than that of Moses or Joshua? Of Samuel or David? Of Isaiah, Jeremiah, or Daniel? Such thoughts overlook the immense change that has come in. The world rejected Christ, the Son of God. He accomplished redemption for those who believe. God has glorified Him at His right hand, and that is the pledge of our own glory. And meanwhile the Holy Spirit has come down to live in us.
Commentators differ over the "better thing." Is it only blessing we have now, or a difference in future glory too? One writer leaves the question open. He says only that something better is stated of the later believers, "whether that better thing be present or future" (William Kelly). Others describe it in present terms: what is open to faith now was shut to them.
The heavens are open now to faith as they were not to them. Christ has passed into the heavens and has become the present object of faith. He took His place there on the ground of accomplished redemption. So God has made heavenly things known as the present portion of Christians. Our citizenship is there. God has come out of the thick darkness of Mount Sinai and has fully revealed Himself in the Son. By the perfect work of the Son of God we have free access to Him in the sanctuary of His presence.
The delay runs in both directions. Neither group finishes first.
But we shall all enter the full enjoyment of our own portions together. They will not "be made perfect" without us, and we may add, nor we without them. We shall all reach final perfection together, on the day of resurrection and glory, when the Lord Jesus comes again.
So they are still waiting: "Instead of being perfected in resurrection glory when the Lord came and accomplished redemption, they had to wait for us who are called to share in the heavenly calling" (William Kelly).
- Faith, not record. God's approval rested on faith alone. Their lives held real failures, but those failures never cancelled the witness He gave.
- God's ledger. The good report stands in God's record of things, not in man's.
- Promises, not the promise. They held enough to sustain them and died without possession; even the city they looked for has not come yet.
- A better thing meanwhile. The world rejected Christ, and God has glorified Him in heaven. That opens to us what was shut to them: heaven as a present portion, and free access to God.
- Perfected together. No one is finished ahead of anyone else. They wait for us, we wait with them, and resurrection at the Lord's coming completes both at once.
God having foreseen some better thing for us, that they should not be made perfect without us.
Hebrews 11 closes by putting two groups side by side: the faithful men and women who died still waiting, and "us" who live after Christ has come. The last verse says why they waited, why they are still waiting, and how God has tied their future to ours.
God commended everyone named in this chapter. Yet not one of them received what He had promised.
They had not received — that is, they never actually held — what God had promised them. Their faith may have gone beyond the promise and looked for the city with foundations that God had prepared for them. Even so, they never entered it. It has not come yet. God would not bring them into their promised portion without us. They, like us, had to live by the faith of it.
The delay has a cause. God had something else to bring in first, and it turned on how the world treated Christ.
In the meantime God had to bring in a new and better thing for us, while Christ, who was rejected, is at the right hand of God on high. So although Christ's first coming laid the ground for every blessing, the fulfilment of it all waits for His coming again. Only when God's provision for us is complete will they be made perfect — not before.
The verse does not spell out what the better thing is. Commentators point to where Christ now is, and to what that opens for us.
But heaven is open to faith now in a way it was not open to them. Christ has gone into heaven and taken His place there, on the ground of a redemption already accomplished, and He is now the object of faith. So God shows heavenly things to be the present portion of Christians. Our citizenship is there... All this wonderful privilege belongs to the calling of the Christian — that is, to those called during this time when the earth rejects Christ. It did not belong to believers before He came and died and rose again.
The word itself runs right through the letter.
In Christianity the "better thing" has come to light. In fact the word "better" marks out this letter, because, as we have seen, its great point is to show that real Christianity rises completely above Judaism. We have already met a BETTER Apostle, Priest, hope, covenant, promises, sacrifice, substance, country and resurrection.
Set beside the giants of this chapter, the claim sounds impossible. People have long objected to it.
Where God has never taught people to understand these new blessings, how often you hear objectors ask: do you mean to say that people like you are more blessed than faithful Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob? Is your portion richer than that of Moses or Joshua? ... Such thoughts completely overlook the immense change brought in by the world's rejection of Christ the Son of God; by the redemption He accomplished for those who believe; by His glorification at God's right hand as the pledge of ours; by the Holy Spirit sent down in the meantime to live in us as anointing, seal, and down payment.
"Perfect" here is not something anyone has reached yet.
There is no perfection, in the full sense, short of resurrection and bearing the image of Christ in glory. For this we wait... For if at His shout the dead in Christ (all who are Christ's) rise first, in bodies of glory, then we who are alive and remain will be changed in a moment. We will be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air. And so we shall be made perfect together.
The verse traces this better portion back to God's foresight, not to anything in us.
God saw further ahead, and He included the believers of today in His purposes of grace... This is pure, unspoiled grace, and it should bow our hearts in adoring thanksgiving. Why should we receive it, and not they, who suffered so much for their faith? At the very least, all of this humbles our hearts in thankfulness to the all-wise and gracious God of glory.
- Waiting. Everyone in the chapter died with God's approval, but no one died holding the promise.
- Reason. The world rejected Christ, so God brought in something new for us. The fulfilment of it all now waits for His return.
- Better. The better thing is an open heaven, Christ on high as the present object of faith, and our citizenship there.
- Together. No one reaches perfection alone. It means resurrection and glory, and they and we arrive at the same moment.
- Response. We earned none of this richer portion, and it came to us and not to people who suffered far more. That should humble us.