Impossible. The word conjures up thoughts of flapping your arms and flying or walking across the Pacific Ocean. Some things just seem impossible. When I was younger, I remember thinking that it was impossible to wait for the month of December because it included Christmas and my birthday. The year always seemed to take forever until the leaves fell, the skies turned dark, and my favorite month finally graced the calendar hanging in the kitchen. As we continue this series in Hebrew 11, we have come to the people who were waiting for the fulfillment of promises which, humanly speaking, seemed impossible. We saw three examples of witnesses to Christ before the Flood—Abel, Enoch, and Noah (vv. 4–7). Now the author to the Hebrews is beginning to consider the prototypical believer in the Old Testament: Abraham.
Seeking an Inheritance
By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. (Hebrews 11:8)
Abraham was called to an inheritance, specifically the promised land, which was the setting for so much of the Old Testament and the Gospels. Abraham (or Abram, as he was then known) was originally from Ur of the Chaldeans (Gen 11:31), a very prosperous place in that time. Leaving Ur would be like leaving the United States for a far-flung place you have never seen or even heard of before. There is no indication that Abraham was not an idolater before the LORD called him—it is probable he was worshipping false gods along with the other inhabitants of Ur. But God called, and he called powerfully. So Abraham answered, painful as it must have been. In his day, leaving your ancestral homeland and your extended family was desertion and dishonor. So what, exactly, made him leave? To put it simply, Abraham gained God himself, a far better blessing than being a well-regarded pagan living in prosperous Ur.
So Abraham left Ur, trusting God without knowing or seeing the land he was promised. If you remember from our brief discussion in Part 1, faith is knowledge, assent, and trust. Abraham heard God’s promise to him, he knew God was sure, and he trusted the Lord. He did not have the advantages of the full revelation of God or even the title deed to a single plot of land in Canaan. He was not relying on his family or countrymen for support and comfort. Instead, he had God’s promise, and that was enough for his faith. He could see the Christ who was to come, however dimly, and he knew that God was good for what he had promised. Abraham looked up to God and ahead to God’s promises being fulfilled in Christ. Brothers and sisters, do the same—look to your God through Christ and look to his promises as they are fulfilled in Christ, because that is where you will find your inheritance.
The first-century Hebrew Christians were tempted to go back, and who was a bigger figure back then than Abraham? But here the author to the Hebrews makes a great rhetorical point: To go back to Abraham is to look to Christ, because that is where Abraham was looking! Look to Christ and the city he built as Abraham did, because only there will you find the sure foundations you seek.
Pilgrims in the Land of Promise
By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God. (Hebrews 11:9–10)
Abraham lived in tents in the promised land, along with the next two generations after him. That meant they were sojourners—tents equaled having no settled place and no foundations. There was no permanence there. And this was generational sojourning. The pilgrim life is not easy—living life on the way to your final destination is not always comfortable. Abraham found contentment by fixing his eyes on the God who promised and on the Christ who was promised. If God had immediately given Abraham a large family and a property deed, do you think the patriarch would have been satisfied? No, not entirely, because God’s promises to him were even greater than merely these blessings. A pilgrimage is only as good as its destination, and this pilgrimage ends in a city.
For pilgrims, cities offered safety. In some ways, it is the opposite today—big cities often mean traffic, pollution, and crime. But back then the foundations and walls of a city kept people safe from the elements, bandits, and invading armies. Foundations like this are scarce in the wilderness, however. In a sense, that is a blessing from God: a lack of belonging helps us keep our eyes on our true inheritance. Likewise, Abraham’s eyes were on the city that is secure because God has built it. Without Christ there is no security or permanence. But God promised Abraham a city with foundations. He also promised him innumerable descendants.
An Heir for the Barren
By faith Sarah herself received power to conceive, even when she was past the age, since she considered him faithful who had promised. Therefore from one man, and him as good as dead, were born descendants as many as the stars of heaven and as many as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore. (Hebrews 11:11–12)
God had made remarkable, humanly speaking impossible promises to Abraham, and it seemed like those promises were hanging on by a thread. Barren Sarah was too old, Abraham was too old, and God had not yet given them a son. But God creates life out of nothing. He gave Sarah the power to conceive Isaac, and through him he gave Abraham innumerable descendants because of his Great Descendant, Jesus Christ. This was not because of Abraham and Sarah’s faith, but because of God’s promise received through faith. They began to inherit the promise, but they had to wait for us to inherit it fully, as Hebrews 11:39–40 tells us, “And all these, though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God had provided something better for us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect.”
Dying Without Receiving and Seeking Without Returning
These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. (Hebrews 11:13–16a)
These saints died without receiving the fulfillment of God’s promise in its fullness. The text tells us they died “in faith,” not “by faith.” Death was not something they actively brought about, but their faith testified even in death. God holds us through death (Isa 26:19–20). Who died? “All these people” died, which means all those mentioned in verses 8–12. Yet they “greeted” the things promised, which is a term that means they turned towards their homeland from a distance. It was a greeting of longing acknowledgment and confidence—a sight seen by faith.
Genesis 23:4 tells us about Abraham’s words to the Hittites when he was seeking to buy a burial place for Sarah. He said to them, “I am a sojourner and foreigner among you; give me property among you for a burying place, that I may bury my dead out of my sight.” In other words, the wait Abraham experienced as he looked for the fulfillment of God’s promises forced him to the right conclusion: If God is faithful, then his promises would come to pass, even if they came to pass in a way that Abraham did not initially expect.
So Abraham waited without the security of an earthly homeland. The first-century Hebrew Christians were in the same boat, and in an ultimate sense, we do not have that security either. This realization ought to call us to repent of the times and ways we have tried to find our ultimate home in this world. As good as this fallen world can still be, we must remember that good does not equal consummate. That is one of the things that Abraham testifies to us.
Some people are strangers or exiles because they have been driven out of their country by war or plague. But this sojourning that Abraham experienced was voluntary—he left at God’s call. In the words and actions of the Patriarchs we see a desire for a better country to which they belong. This was homesickness of the ultimate kind, a homesickness that no parcel of land on this fallen planet can satisfy.
Why did they continue as sojourners? Because they did not want to go back, because the fulfillment had not yet arrived. When you see the beauty of Christ and his city, his truth and beauty, this world loses its hold on you. So look to Christ clothed in his gospel, and ask the Holy Spirit to give you a better view of God and his promises. Trust in the God who saves you, as Abraham and Sarah did, and remember: Heaven is better! Where were they when they confessed these things? They were in the promised land. In John 8:56 our Lord Jesus says, “Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad.” The divine testimony is clear to us as it was to them: We are awaiting something better. In the words of John Owen, “Heaven is the desire at the bottom of the sighs and groans of all believers, whatever outwardly may give occasion unto them.”1
A City and a God
Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city. (Hebrews 11:16b)
“God is not ashamed” because they had faith in his promises to them. Had God merely considered their works he would have had reason to be ashamed. Instead, he considered their faith in his promises of redemption. God not being ashamed to be called the God of those who trust in Christ is the greatest blessing we could desire or have. It is an honor beyond our wildest dreams. Something similar was said from Jesus’ perspective back in Hebrews 2:11: “For he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one source. That is why he is not ashamed to call them brothers.” Remember Christian, in Christ God is not ashamed to be called your God.
One way God shows he is not ashamed is by preparing a city for those who trust in him. One important refrain throughout Scripture is what Reformed theologians often call the Covenantal Formula: “I will be your God, and you will be my people” (Ezek 36:28; et al). This happens in its greatest sense when God dwells with his people in the New Jerusalem (Rev 21:3). This is a city God made, not us, which is why we can hope for and be confident in it. The patriarchs needed hope in hardship, as did the early Hebrew Christians. And we need hope in hardship, too. The question we need to ask is this: Is our inheritance here or there? Are we looking for something in this life, or is our final ultimate inheritance found in the presence of God for all the everlasting ages in the new creation? The patriarchs, for all their flaws, knew it was the latter, and so should you. Meditate on the beauty of this city, and on the goodness and grace of God in Christ. He is our only hope, and praise God he is certain and true!
Conclusion
If you were to read their accounts in Genesis, pretty quickly you would realize that Abraham and Sarah had the same weak faith that we do. But they also had the same strong Christ that we do. Abraham could not build a city with true foundations. Sarah could not have a child of promise. But because God kept his promise there will be a multitude before God’s throne.
We often think of the patriarchs as examples to follow in their deeds (we do not have the space to get into that here). For now, follow their example in faith. Look to the same Christ to whom they looked. Trust in the promises of the same God. In the words of one early Christian, “They live in their own countries, but only as aliens. They have a share in everything as citizens, and endure everything as foreigners. Every foreign land is their fatherland, and yet for them every fatherland is a foreign land. . . . They busy themselves on earth, but their citizenship is in heaven.”2 So what are you fearing? Death is only the end of the earthly sojourn. Remember Heidelberg Catechism 1: “What is your only comfort in life and in death? That I am not my own, but belong—body and soul, in life and in death—to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ.” That was Abraham and Sarah’s only comfort, even if they could not articulate it in quite the same way. Next time we will consider more from the time of the patriarchs.
notes
- John Owen, Hebrews: The Epistle of Warning (Kregel Publications, 1953), 226.
- The Epistle to Diognetus, 5:5, 6:9.
©Chris Smith. All Rights Reserved.
You can find the whole series here.
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Christopher Smith
Christopher Smith is originally from Bellevue, Nebraska. A graduate of Westminster Seminary California (M.Div 2019; MA (Historical Theology) 2020). He is associate pastor of Phoenix URC in the United Reformed Churches of North America. He is currently pursuing a ThM in systematic theology at Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary.
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