What does "these all died in faith" mean (Hebrews 11:13)?

"All these died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them from afar off, and hailed them, and confessed that they were strangers and sojourners on the earth; for they who say such things show clearly that they seek a country. And if they had had in mind that from whence they went out, they would have had opportunity to have returned; but now they seek a better, that is a heavenly. Wherefore God is not ashamed of them, to be called their God, for he hath prepared for them a city."

We are here reminded that even when Abraham reached Canaan he had not reached the object of faith. He was as much a pilgrim in the land as he was in journeying to it. His whole life was a pilgrimage. He never possessed what God had promised him. Through his whole life Abraham, with Isaac and Jacob also, was a pilgrim. "These all died in faith," or, as the word is, "died according to faith." They died according to that which faith had laid hold of. By faith they saw but did not receive the promises connected with the inheritance. Nature waxed feeble; its powers decayed, and they were laid away in death; but they died in faith, clinging to the promises yet afar off — convinced of them, so that there was no uncertainty.

It is sometimes said that the Old Testament saints had very hazy views of resurrection, or of any life beyond the present one. What was it, then, that sustained Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob? What was it that they were persuaded of and saluted while they confessed they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth? It was that which is to control our lives also, though we have not entered upon our inheritance. If this life only is our portion, we are "of all men most miserable;" but we have seen the promises afar off; we too have greeted them, saying, We shall soon possess and be where the promises are laid up for us, and we confess that we also are "strangers and pilgrims on the earth."

Verse 13. All these died in faith; in an attitude of faith waiting for the promises. This is how the Hebrews should die if death overtook them before the accomplishment of their hope.

These Hebrews were going back to the expectation of a Messiah they could see. They are reminded that none of those in whom they boasted did see what they waited for. "These all died in faith, not having received," etc. You want a visible Messiah; but none of these you glory in got what they waited for. With a Jew this was an unanswerable argument. The elders got nothing but by faith. So with us. What have we but what we have by faith?

(Vv. 13-16). Further, we are told that these saints not only lived in faith, but they also “died in faith”, not having received the promises. They having died, God gives us a wonderful summary of their lives. In their history we know there was much failure, for they were men of like passions with ourselves, and their failures have been recorded for our warning. Here the failure is passed over, and God records all that in their lives was the fruit of His own grace. These verses are God's epitaph upon the Patriarchs.

Firstly, we are told that they looked beyond things seen. They saw the promises “afar off”. They were persuaded in their minds of the certainty of the future glory and they heartily embraced the hope of glory.

Secondly, the future glory being heartily embraced produced a practical effect in their lives — they confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.

"These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth." Faith sees death to be but a necessary step toward the fulfilment of the promise, hence the quiet calmness of the patriarchs in the face of death. First in our verse we see faith's long sight; secondly, its firm, unshaken persuasion, thirdly, its embracing with the entire soul the preciousness of the truth of God; and fourthly, its unhesitating confession before the world that earth is but a foreign land of pilgrimage. How full, and real, and precious such character! Who would exchange it for all the wealth, pleasure, power and popularity the world may offer for a brief span of years? For the latter is but a bubble of air, bursting and gone, in comparison to eternal, solid substantial reality.

"For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country. And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned. But now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for He hath prepared for them a city" The very actions of such examples of faith are a plain declaration that they seek something beyond and unseen, that is substantial and permanent. If Abraham had decided after coming to Canaan, that his previous home in Mesopotamia (where he had served idols) was preferable to a path of faith in the living God, then the way was open for him to return; but he had no such inclination. Just so, one who professes faith in Christ, if he prefers his former sins to a path of faith and the truth of God's Word, may return to his folly again; but this would only prove that he had never in actual faith embraced the promises of God. Abraham desired a better country, which could only be heavenly. however meagre was the knowledge of Abraham as to its character. He could trust God without being told everything. Much more has been revealed to us: how much more responsible this therefore renders us! And where this lowly, self-denying pilgrim character is in evidence. God is not ashamed to link His Name with it. Blessed if it can be said of ourselves that He is not ashamed to be called our God! He has prepared for us a city. Loneliness and deprivation now will give place to fullest fellowship and fullest provision there. For this, faith waits with patience.

Verse 13. The fathers died as they had lived. According to the faith which made God's distant promise better to them than a present portion in the world, they rendered up their lives confidingly to Him. The living God would not be overcome of death. He was their God, and they would live to Him. He had called them forth to be His witnesses in the confession of a hope which should not make ashamed. What gave the earthly course of the first patriarchs its character of strangership and pilgrimage, was the specific promises which were successively renewed to each. The tenure which enabled them to find those promises a present joy, was the faith by which they clave to God. God was between them and the hope which filled their hearts. They died without receiving their desire. But they saw the promises distinctly, in His light who calls things that be not as though they were. They were persuaded of them, for they trusted in His word. They embraced them, for they deemed them worthy of their love. They were more to them than the delights of men. They confessed that they were strangers upon earth, because the God of heaven had revealed to them a better country, and a more enduring rest.

For they that voluntarily say that they are pilgrims, plainly show that they have done with earth (verse 14). Men tardily acknowledge, when constrained to die, that human life is but a changeful journey. They are reluctant confessors of a common lot of vanity. But God's anointed never settled on the earth. They wandered all their days, because they knew that flesh and blood could never enter where their hopes were placed. Their pilgrimage was a confession that no wise man's rest remained on this side of a mortal life.

But "that day" is not yet come; and we return to their fathers. From the rising above difficulties insuperable save to God on whose word they relied (verses 11, 12), we have a summary in verses 13-16, which brings out the patriarchs refusing all temptation, and by faith holding on their pilgrim way to death consistently with the accomplishment of promise. This is the reason why the phraseology changes in the beginning of verse 13. It is no longer "in" faith, that is, in virtue (or the power) of faith as in verse 2, where such a force is requisite, and not the mere notion of element or matter as in 1 Cor. 11:20 and very often. Nor further is it the proximate cause, the dynamic or instrumental dative as in verses 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 11, and again in 17, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 27, 29, 30, and 31. Still less does it distinguish faith as the means "through" which, as in 4, 7, 33. Here (verse 13), if we say "in," we mean according to faith, contrasted with sight or possession of the things promised. What indeed would be the sense of saying that "by" or "through" faith all these died? Nor is it "in" i.e. in virtue of faith, but according to faith as in verse 7 of our chapter, where the precisely same phrase occurs. The Vulgate gives "juxta fidem" here, "per fidem" in verse 7. We may see it again in Titus 1:1, and modified by "common" in 4, in both of which the Vulgate has "secundum." Conformity with faith is here predicated of Abraham and those patriarchs that followed, not for perseverance to the end though this was the fact, but in being content to wait for God's fulfilling the promises in due time.

"These all died in faith." The history strikingly illustrates this. They valued their dead bodies and the burying places which held them. While they lived, they were content to sojourn in Canaan without having so much as to set their foot on. But "they died in faith." The promise of God had made over that land, that very land, to them, though they themselves were to be gathered to their fathers (Gen. 15); and this was the warrant for their dying in faith, in the sure and certain hope of a resurrection unto the enjoyment of it. They would link their dead, though not their living, bodies with that land. Their care in securing the field of Ephron, the cave of Machpelah, for a burying-place, tells us this; and so the jealousy with which those of them who died in Egypt secured the carriage of their bones over to the promised land. All this verifies that "they died in faith." Whether their bodies lay in Machpelah or Sychem mattered not, for their bones would, in either case, be equally linked with the promised land. Stephen tells us that all the fathers were animated with this same faith. (Acts 7:13) And I quite agree with those who say that this solves that difficult verse. (Acts 7:16) Stephen shortly tells us that all were carried over from Egypt to Canaan, but whether to the ground which Abraham bought of Ephron, or that which Jacob bought of Hamor, it mattered not, for both equally linked their hopes with the promised inheritance. By faith they "gave commandment concerning their bones." (Heb. 11:22)

God reads the heart, and He delights — we say it with all reverence — to take note of faith in any of His saints. So of Sarah we next read, and of her faith as to the birth of Isaac. Who when reading Genesis would have gathered the existence of it from the lawgiver's account? But here, centuries after Moses wrote, the Spirit of God put on record what He saw in her — viz. faith as to that which naturally would have seemed impossible: "She judged [or, counted] Him faithful that had promised" (11:11). A fine reason this for the exercise of faith. With her it was not, Can it be? but, He had said it, so it shall be. She rested as to this solely on the word of her God. For who before her had become a mother at ninety? (Gen. 17:17). "Is anything too hard for the Lord?" (Gen. 18:14) was the word of God to Abraham. For a fellow-creature to have said that would be one thing; for God to say it is quite another. All power He has, and He would certainly fulfil His promise that Sarah should have a son. What results ensued! "Therefore sprang there even of one, and him as good as dead, so many as the stars of the sky in multitude, and as the sand which is by the sea shore innumerable." Then, too, faith was in exercise with the patriarchs to the end of their life here. "These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth" (Heb. 11:12-13). Death may come in ere the promise is fulfilled. Of this the Hebrews were reminded. For whilst on earth the full blessing cannot be enjoyed. But it can never rob us of our hope.

Living as they did centuries after the patriarchs, they could see how God's promises had been fulfilled to the nation. The inheritance had been enjoyed. The seed had indeed been multiplied. But for Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob those hopes were unfulfilled. They died in expectation of their fulfilment. They died in faith, having seen them afar off, and they embraced them; and desiring a better country, that is, a heavenly, "God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared for them a city" (Heb. 11:16). What encouragement for the partakers of the heavenly calling! Had any thought their lot as Christians a hard one? What could they think of it when reminded that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob trod as pilgrims a similar path, walked too by faith, turned not back for an inheritance in the country that Abraham had left, and died in expectation only of the fulfilment of the promises. How patriarchal history in point after point furnishes instruction for Christians! Instruction only shall we say? Must we not add encouragement of a very high order? For God is not ashamed to be called the God of those who put their trust in the fulfilment of His word. Could the Hebrews possibly turn back?

"These all died in (or according to) faith, (kata pistin,) not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth." (Heb. 11:13) This is a truly exquisite feature in the divine life. Those "witnesses," of whom the apostle is speaking in Heb. 11 not merely lived by faith, but even when they arrived at the close of their career, they proved that the promises of God were as real and satisfying to their souls as when they first started. Now, I believe this purchase of a burying place in the land was an exhibition of the power of faith, not only to live, but to die. Why was Abraham so particular about this purchase? Why was he so anxious to make good his claim to the field and cave of Ephron on righteous principles? Why so determined to weigh out the full price "current with the merchant?" Faith is the answer. He did it all by faith. He knew the land was his in prospect, and that in glory his seed should yet possess it, and until then he would be no debtor to those who were yet to be dispossessed.