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.