Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16 Commentary

While it doesn’t explicitly identify Christian faith’s Object, this Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson begins with what some of God’s adopted children consider to be the classic definition of Christian faith. In verse 1 Hebrews’ unnamed author says, “Faith is confidence [hypostasis*] in what we hope for [elpizomenon] and assurance [elenchos] about what we do not see [ou blepomenon].”

So the Spirit inspired Hebrews’ author to call faith that which sees far beyond what can be seen with the human eye. It hopes for far more than that for which those who have no faith can hope. Faith, in other words, doesn’t rely on conventional wisdom. While it’s not illogical, it doesn’t depend on logic. Faith depends, quite simply, from first to last — and everywhere in between — on its Divine Author.

Such faith, insists Hebrews’ author, “is what the ancients [presbyterio] were commended [emartyrethesan] for” (2). While Christians sometimes assume that means that it was God who commended our ancestors in the faith for such faith, most scholars deduce that it was the ancients’ contemporaries who witnessed and commended that trust. The Message, in fact, paraphrases verse 2b as “The act of faith is what distinguished our ancestors.”

This at least suggests that Jesus’ 21^st century followers’ confidence in what we hope for and assurance of what we can’t see is both distinctive and noticeable. In a world and culture that is characterized by, among other things, hopelessness and materialism, the confidence and trust the Spirit gives us in God and God’s good purposes set us apart. What’s more, as we let the Spirit conform our lives to the contours of that faith, our contemporaries may notice and, by God’s grace, be drawn to the God who creates that faith.

That faith, says Hebrews’ author, in some ways looks not just forward, but also backward in time. “By faith [Pistei],” he writes in verse 3, “we understand [nooumen] that the universe [aionas] was formed [katertisthai] at God’s command [rhemati Theou], so that what is seen [to blepomen] was not made out of [gegonenai] what was visible [phainomenon].”

Here is gospel that is as contemporary as this month’s Science magazine. While scholars’ minds’ eyes are able to range back as far as the instant after what they call “The Big Bang,” even our wisest experts can’t see either that creative moment or anything (or one) before it. It remains to those with whom God has not gifted faith unseeable and invisible.

In the face of that blindness, God’s dearly beloved people profess God has empowered us to “see” how it all started. We see that matter is neither eternal nor randomly created. While some Christians continue to argue about just how and when God spoke matter into being, we know that it happened because God somehow spoke it into existence. By faith we can see things that would otherwise remain unseen (and uncreated) because God’s word created all that is created, including the world and people God so deeply loves.

Hebrews’ author spends much of this Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson emphasizing how seeing beyond that which the naked eye could see played a prominent role in the life of even God’s dearly beloved people who lived before Jesus was born. Though they neither saw nor heard about the Son of God incarnate, they were confident in that for which they hoped and certain about what they couldn’t see.

Preachers might point out a number of things about God’s dearly beloved people’s life of faith that this Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson describes. Three times in four verses Hebrews’ author says Abraham left his ancestral home, went to where God showed him and saw his infertile wife and him as having a son “by faith.” Abraham’s confidence in what he hoped for and assurance of what he could not see was, in other words, more than an attitude toward the future. It also animated his behavior.

Hebrews’ author, what’s more, suggests that seeing what couldn’t yet be seen played a large role in Abraham and other ancients’ faith. While in verse 8 he reports Abraham “did not know [epistamenos] where he was going,” he might just as well have written Abraham could not see where he was going. What’s more, while verse 11 reports Abraham knew he was too old to father a child and Sarah was infertile, it might just as well have noted that Abraham and Sarah couldn’t see themselves as bearing a son.

Hebrews author goes on to pen something similar about other people of God. They didn’t just “see” [idontes] and welcome” God’s promises they couldn’t see with the naked eye because they were at “a distance” (13). God’s dearly beloved people were also, according to verse 14, “looking for [epizetousin] a country of their own [hoti petrida].” Though they couldn’t see that “country” with the naked eye, as The Message paraphrases verse 14, “They saw it way off in the distance [and] waved their greeting.”

Preachers might admit Jesus’ followers have sometimes misapplied this beautiful profession. We’ve been tempted to so concentrate on the “country of our own” that is the new creation that we’ve failed to properly care for either this creation or its creatures. There is some validity to people’s criticism that Christians are sometimes so heavenly minded that we’re of little earthly good.

Hebrews 11:14 is a summons to a more nuanced loyalty. We are citizens of the countries in which God has placed us. God has called us to care for all the countries of our world, including people who are vulnerable and marginalized. At the same time, however, we are “foreigners and strangers on earth.” Our primary citizenship and loyalty is in and to not some earthly country, but God’s kingdom of which we often catch only fleeting glimpses. Jesus’ friends are never completely at ease in any kingdom but God’s whose completion we cannot yet see because its full implementation awaits Jesus’ second coming.

On top of that, preachers might note how faith rests on not some spiritual virtue of our own, but on God’s utter reliability and trustworthiness. In verse 10 Hebrews’ author insists Abraham could leave his home to settle in the land God promised him because “he was looking forward to [exedecheto] the city with foundations [themelious] whose architect [technites] and builder [demiourgos] was God.” He certainly couldn’t see that “city” with the naked eye. Yet Abraham could “see” is by faith because God designed and built it.

What’s more, neither he nor his wife Sarah could “see” having a son together. But they could be sure of what they hoped for and certain about what they could not see because they knew God’s adopted children can count on God. “Sarah,” Hebrews’ author writes in verse 11, “considered [hegesato] him faithful [piston] who had made the promise [epangeilamenon].” Faith’s certainty lies not in its complete understanding or exclusion of questions. Jesus’ friends can fully trust God to keep God’s promises because we see how God is completely faithful to both himself and all God’s promises.

Such faith, Hebrews’ author goes on to note in verses 13-16, sees what cannot be seen by the naked eye beyond physical death. Abel, Enoch, Abraham, Sarah, Isaac and Jacob “were still living by faith [Kata pistin] when they died [apethenon]. They did not receive [me komisamenoi] the things promised [epangelias]” (13).

God graces faith with the ability to see beyond the grave and cemetery, beyond the columbarium and crematorium. Jesus’ faithful friends can see that which our contemporaries can’t yet see: eternal life lived in God’s glorious presence in the new earth and heaven. God carries what we call Christians’ “souls” to himself at death where they await their reunion with their resurrected bodies at Christ’s Second Coming.

There, by God’s amazing grace, we will spend eternity in the “city” [polin] God has lovingly “prepared” [hetoimesin] (16) for those who have received God’s grace. In response, Jesus’ followers seek to let the Spirit keep us confident in what we hope for and assured about what we can now only see with the eyes of faith.

*I have here and elsewhere added in brackets the Greek words for the English words the NIV translation uses.

Illustration

In his January 7, 1997, New York Review of Books article entitled “Billions and Billions of Demons” Harvard biologist Richard Lewontin exemplifies materialism’s blindness. He notes how atheist materialists often commit themselves to atheism. They want the world to have no God, and they want to live without having to worry about God.

He writes “Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community of unsubstantiated ‘just so’ stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism.

“It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counterintuitive, no matter mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door (italics mine).”