Hebrews 11

Notes

Ver. 1. Now, to give you a summary account of the excellent nature and effects of that faith by which men believe unto salvation, it gives a sort of present subsistence in the mind to, and a confident expectation of, future blessings, which, by the infallible promise of God, are as fully ascertained and realized, to the believer's comfort, as if he actually possessed them. And, merely on the credit of divine revelation, it gives us as clear and convincing a demonstration of invisible things as if they were ever so plainly exhibited to our natural sight: 2. For, by this realizing and evidencing exercise of faith, our godly ancestors, all along from the time of the first promise till now, obtained an honourable testimony from God, part of which is contained in his Word.—3. Though, from reason and observation, we are obliged to conclude the wonderful fabric of this world to have been the workmanship of God, yet it is by faith in his Word, as the evidence of things not seen, that we certainly know that God formed all things by a mere act of his will, and that in such beautiful order, out of the mere chaos once covered with absolute darkness. 4. By faith in God's first promise of Christ's incarnation and sufferings, and in his appointment of sacrifices to prefigure them, Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain—by which he humbly acknowledged his own guilt, and prefigured the death of the Messiah, as the Lamb of God, to make atonement for the sins of the people; and hence, by some visible token from heaven, as well as by inward intimations to his conscience, God testified to him that his person was justified, and his sacrifice accepted, through Christ. And by means of this faith, as his case stands recorded in the book of God, Abel, though dead long ago, still instructs us that the only way of a sinner's justification before God is through faith in the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ; and that the murder of innocents, and especially of faithful saints, shall be terribly punished. 5. By faith, which rendered him accepted in the Beloved, and purified his heart from dead works to perfect holiness, in the most close walking with God, Enoch, the seventh from Adam, was miraculously translated to heaven, soul and body, without undergoing the ordinary change of death; and, even before he was rapt up into heaven, God attested to his conscience, and perhaps to his neighbours, that his person and works were accepted in his sight. 6. But without such realizing and evidencing faith in Christ it is impossible to please God; for he that approaches him in prayer, or any other religious worship, must, upon the ground of revelation, believe that God really exists as the only true God, and that he freely gives himself, and all blessings of grace and glory, as an exceeding great and gracious reward, to those that humbly, earnestly, perseveringly, and with their whole heart, seek his face and favour in Christ, in the means of his own appointment, and in reliance on his covenant promises. 7. By faith Noe, who was righteous before God, and walked with him, crediting his threatening to destroy the old world, and his promise to preserve him and his family, built an ark, wherein they, and a remnant of animals, were saved from the general deluge; by which faith in the truth, power, justice, and mercy of God revealed to him, and by his building the ark in obedience to God's command, and by his repeated preaching of righteousness, he doctrinally and practically condemned the inhabitants of the old world; and by his faith in the Messiah, who was typified by his ark as the only mean of salvation, he became heir of the world, renewed after the flood, and of the righteousness of Christ received by faith. and of all the blessings, temporal, spiritual, or eternal, secured by it. 8. It was by faith in the authority of God, and in his promise to give to him and to his seed a land figurative of the heavenly inheritance, that Abraham, the friend of God, and father of the Jews and of all believers, at his call, left his native country of Chaldea, and set out on a journey to a land which he knew nothing of—no, not so much as its name, or the way to it. 9. It was by faith in the promise and protection of God that he, with Isaac and Jacob, his fellow-heirs of the promised Canaan, contentedly wandered, as a stranger and pilgrim, in that country, among the heathen inhabitants, dwelling only in movable tents. 10. For God having promised to be his exceeding great reward, and his God for ever, and that in his seed all the nations of the earth should be blessed, he by faith looked through the figurative Canaan to the earnestly desired and expected, highly privileged, great, glorious, regular, firmly fixed, and everlasting blessedness of heaven, of which God himself is the contriver, former, and even the very substance. 11. It was also by faith, in the faithfulness and power of God engaged in the promise, that Sara, the beloved wife of Abraham, after her recovery from her unbelief, was enabled, beyond all expectation, and all ordinary influence of second causes, to conceive and bear a son, after she had continued barren till the ninetieth year of her age. 12. And in virtue of their faith, a prodigiously numerous offspring descended from them, after both of them had appeared beyond all possibility of having any. 13. And not only did Abraham, Sara, Isaac, and Jacob, live by faith in God's promises and perfections, under their trials on earth, but died also in the full and comfortable persuasion, that however little they had experienced of the fulfilment of the promises on earth, God would completely accomplish them—in giving themselves an immediate entrance into the blessedness of heaven; and in increasing their posterity, and settling them in Canaan as his peculiar people; and in bringing the Messiah from their loins to be the common Saviour of men: and they avowed that they looked on themselves as no more than aliens and strangers in this world, passing through it in their way to the heavenly country. 14. And this avowal, that their hearts and hopes, interest and happiness, were not placed on any earthly concerns, manifested to all around them that they looked and hoped for, desired and earnestly sought after, the large and delightful abodes of heaven, as their native home, in which they should for ever dwell with God as their Father and Friend. 15. And it is evident that the country which they sought after was not their native home in Chaldea, where their friends and relations continued; for, if they had been inclined to return thither, they had time, liberty, and power enough to do it with safety. 16. But all their desires and expectations centred on that transcendently more excellent, satisfying, glorious, abiding, incorruptible, and undefiled heavenly inheritance; wherefore God, in his infinite love, condescended to avow himself to be their God in a peculiar and distinguished manner; and, answerably to this high relation, has graciously appointed, laid out, framed, and fitted up the heavenly mansions for their whole persons, soul and body, to dwell with himself. 17-19. It was by faith in the promises of God to him and to his seed, particularly that which concerned the Messiah and his extensive salvation, that Abraham—when required, for the eminent trial of his faith and obedience, to offer up in a burnt-offering his only son Isaac, whom he had obtained by such a miraculous conception and birth, and in whom the promises were to be fulfilled—so readily complied, and proceeded in this work till stopped by God himself; accounting and concluding in his own mind, that though Isaac should be slain and burned to ashes, God easily could and would raise him from the dead, in order to fulfil the promises in him and his seed. And, indeed, as at first he received him from his own and Sara's dead bodies, on that occasion he received him back from that death to which he had been, without any hope to the contrary, heartily devoted. 20-22. It was by faith in the promises of God that Isaac, by prophetic influence, assigned to Jacob the principal, and to Esau the subordinate, blessings for themselves and their seed; and that Jacob, when very feeble, in like manner foretold the fate of Joseph's two sons, assigning the principal glory to Ephraim the younger; and that Joseph, when dying, assured his brethren that God would certainly preserve them in, and in due time bring them out of Egypt; and in testimony of his faith herein, appointed them to carry his bones with them to Canaan, and bury them there. 23. It was by faith in God's promises of their preservation in and deliverance from Egypt, that Moses' parents, observing something extraordinary in their child, dared, contrary to the commandment of Pharaoh their king, to conceal him three months after his birth. 24-26. By faith in the same promises of God, made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and in the invisible things of the heavenly state, Moses, when forty years old, and extraordinarily qualified with learning and wisdom, renounced his adoptive relation to Pharaoh, which might have issued in his succession to the crown of Egypt, quitted the court, and associated himself with his Hebrew brethren—choosing rather to undergo the severest oppression, suffering, and trouble, with God's own peculiar people, than to gratify his flesh with the enjoyment of all the uncertain and perishing grandeur, affluence, and sensual pleasures of a pompous, idolatrous, and luxurious court; deliberately reckoning reproach, derision, and persecution, for the sake of Christ, and in communion with him and his people, more valuable and useful, for the honour of God and his own spiritual interests, than all the wealth and honours that the kingdom of Egypt could afford: for he looked off from those perishing riches on the one hand, and beyond those temporal hardships on the other, to the immortal and inexpressible glories reserved for him in heaven, which he knew would more than recompense all the reproaches, wants, and sufferings he could undergo for the sake of a good conscience on earth. 27. By faith in the command and promise of God, about forty years after he returned from Midian; and, fearless of King Pharaoh's threatenings and wrath, demanded his permission for the Hebrews to leave the country; and at last, regardless of his furious pursuit, led them forth to liberty, by faith depending entirely on the invisible God. 28. By faith in the promise of God to deliver his people from Egypt, and in the promised Messiah typified by that divinely appointed ordinance, he, and the children of Israel, directed by him, observed the passover, and sprinkled the blood on their upper lintels and door-posts, that the angel who, that very night, destroyed all the first-born of the Egyptians, might not hurt them. 29. And it was chiefly by his faith in the promise and command of God that the Red Sea was divided, and a passage opened for the Israelites from Egypt to the Arabian wilderness—in which Pharaoh and his army, attempting to follow them, were every one of them drowned. 30. It was by the faith of Joshua, Caleb, and others, in the promise, faithfulness, power, and command of God, that the walls of Jericho miraculously fell down while the Israelites shouted, after they and the ark of God had compassed the city seven days. 31. It was by faith in the God of Israel, and his grant of the land of Canaan to his favourite Jews, that Rahab, a Gentile, who had been a harlot, kindly received the spies whom Joshua sent to view the city, and so, together with her friends, escaped, when the rest of the inhabitants, who disregarded what they had heard or seen of God's miraculous appearances for Israel, perished in a general slaughter. 32. But why should I multiply further instances of the power and triumphs of faith? Both my time, and the intended limits of this epistle, forbid me to give a particular account—how, by faith in the promise and command of God, Gideon reformed his city, and, with a handful of unarmed men, routed the Midianites; Barak and Deborah, with ten thousand undisciplined troops, vanquished the formidable army of Jaban, king of Canaan; Jephthah overthrew the Ammonites; Samson, in his life, and at his death, destroyed the Philistines; David endured manifold trials, conquered giants and nations; Samuel, by miracles, delivered and terrified his people; Elijah, Elisha, and other prophets, patiently endured their troubles, boldly declared their messages, and, when necessary, confirmed them by miracles;—33. How, through faith in God's promise and providence, Moses and Joshua subdued the Canaanites, and David the nations around; and they and others not only kept the commandments of God themselves, but reformed their nation, and governed them with great equity and impartiality; or by remarkable appearances of providence obtained the actual accomplishment of particular promises made to them: Daniel stopped the mouths of lions in the den; Samson slew one, David another, and Benaiah a third: 34. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego restrained the force of Nebuchadnezzar's fiery furnace; they, and Elijah, Elisha, and others, escaped the murderous plots and attempts of cruel tyrants; others, as Hezekiah, were recovered from desperate distempers; or, as Gideon and David, from weakness and cowardice, became valiant conquerors. 35-38. By means of faith, the Shunammite and widow of Zarephath beheld their deceased sons restored to life; and many, in the persecutions of Ahab, Jehoram, Ahaz, Manasseh, Jehoiakim, or others, courageously endured the most exquisite sufferings and cruel deaths, in hopes of a resurrection to eternal life, refusing to redeem their lives by the smallest apostasy from the truth; while Isaac, Elisha, Joseph, Samson, Micaiah, and Jeremiah, or others, underwent the most cruel derision, scourging, or imprisonment; and Naboth, Zechariah, Uriah, and others, were murdered in different cruel and barbarous forms; and others, of whose converse, admonitions, and prayers, the wicked inhabitants of the world were not worthy—as David, Elijah, and others—were obliged to flee about as vagabonds from place to place, and hide themselves in deserts, dens, and caves of the earth. 39, 40. But though these ancient saints and servants of God, by means of their faith, have obtained an honourable testimony in the infallible records of God's Word, and embraced and relied upon the promise of the Messiah, yet they never lived to see him come in the flesh, fulfil the work of our redemption, and introduce the glories of the gospel state of the church—God having provided for us who now believe these better things, that their ancient state of religious worship and privileges might not be perfected without some exhibition of Christ in the flesh, fulfilment of all righteousness, and exceeding riches of grace, which are manifested in their transcendent light, glory, and efficacy in the gospel dispensation which we now enjoy.

Ver. 1. The apostle had asserted (ch. 10. 36) that believers had always 'need of patience,' because they received not 'their recompense' in present possession, but in future promise. He then proves, by prophetic authority, that 'the just shall live by faith;' and proceeds (ch. 11. 1) to define faith as ὑπόστασις, 'the firm confidence' (of the reality) 'of things hoped for,' as if they were in actual possession.—Ἔλεγχος, 'the revelation of things not seen,' as if they were already before the eyes; whereby he proves that as faith always embraces things future and invisible, it can never be separated from that patience which waits for them.

Ver. 2. In proof of the foregoing statement, Paul now adduces the example of 'the elders' (as well those anterior as posterior to Abraham), who obtained 'a good report' both of God and of posterity—not through the ceremonial law, in which the unbelieving Jews trusted for righteousness, but through one common faith, and under the uniform influence of unwearied patience. C.

Ver. 13. These all. Abraham and Sarah, who had come out from their country at the call of God, ver. 15, and Isaac and Jacob, who accompanied him in his unsettled wanderings. C.

Ver. 21. The Romanists, following the Vulgate translation, and rejecting the Greek of the apostle, render this passage—'he adored the top of his staff;' whereby they obtain an apparent countenance for image worship. But all the Greek MSS. agree in ἐπὶ ἄκρον, which can be translated in no other manner than 'upon the top.' The Hebrew word translated 'staff' may, however, be also translated either 'staff' or 'bed's head,' according as it is pointed; and the latter would be accordant with the authorized version, Ge. 47. 31, and is supported by all the ancient versions except the LXX., and by modern expositors of the highest order of learning. Still, as the Greek ῥάβδος will bear no other meaning than 'staff' or 'sceptre,' its apostolic adoption from the LXX. should surely entitle it to be retained as the true translation of the Hebrew. C.

Ver. 26. The reproach of Christ—for expecting whom as a deliverer the Hebrews were ridiculed and reproached. C.

Ver. 27. He forsook Egypt—not when he fled to Midian, Ge. 2. 14, 15, but when he led out the Israelites, and forsook all his property and prospects of advancement, as 'the son of Pharaoh's daughter.' And this he did, 'not fearing the wrath of the king,' whom he, most probably, expected to pursue him and his undisciplined host with his army. C.

Ver. 31. The harlot Rahab. That is, who had been a harlot (for the word, whether in Hebrew or Greek, will bear no other meaning), but who, having come to a knowledge of the true God, had 'brought forth fruits meet for repentance.' Thus 'Simon the leper' and 'Matthew the publican' retain their names, when the one had been healed and the other had become an apostle. C.

Ver. 40. That they without us should not be made perfect in their knowledge of the mysteries of redemption (Mat. 11. 11; 13. 17; Ep. 3. 10), or in their numbers as members of the body of Christ, and children of the family of God, Ep. 1. 22; He. 13. 2. C.

Reflections.—What a noble grace is unfeigned faith dwelling in the heart! and how extensively useful! Through the infallible declarations of God it realizes invisible and future things, and gives them a kind of subsistence in our soul. By receiving and resting on the person and righteousness of Christ, it renders us and our services accepted with God.—Crediting his warnings, and obeying his directions, it delivers from danger and death; it weans the heart from this world, and sets it on things above; it enables us to wait for the accomplishment of promises, however unlikely and long delayed; it animates to the most trying obedience; qualifies for a joyful and devout entrance into the eternal state; enables to look into futurities, upon God's authority and credit; and to prefer sufferings with his people, and for his sake, and an exact obedience to his law, to everything earthly: and after exploits unnumbered, it issues in eternal rest and triumph.—Tender is God in giving it, or its various degrees, to all who accept Christ by simple faith, and in exposing his dearest saints to the most singular trials and heaviest troubles on earth to exercise it. But if he be for us, who can be against or hurt us? And it is highly unworthy for us Christian believers, notwithstanding our greatly superior advantages, to be so much inferior to some ancient saints in the vigour and distinctness of our faith.