Hebrews 11:39-12:01a – Faith Runs Together With the Saints

Translation & Sermon by Nate Wilson for Christ the Redeemer Church of Manhattan, KS, 27 Oct. 2019

Omitting greyed-out text should bring presentation time down around 45 minutes.

Intro

• Several years ago, I saw the following message on a church signboard: “CH_ _CH. What’s missing?” And of course, the answer was U.R. (“You Are”)! As cheesy as it may be to put that on a church marquis, it states a profound truth that without the faithful presence of us today, the church is not complete.

• As we conclude our study of Hebrews chapter 11, we will see that there are certain things that all the believers throughout history are still waiting for, that won’t happen until the number of the church is completed.

• There is a sort of a fortiori argument (“[from the lesser] to the greater”) going on at the end of chapter 11 and the beginning of chapter 12 that runs like this: “If those Old Testament believers were able to trust God and be saved, knowing as little as they did about Christ, then we in the New Testament who know so much more about Christ should all the more be diligent to run with Christian faith! Let’s start in at….

v.39 In summary, all of these about whom testimony was given on account of their faith did not collect on the promise.

• The Greek word μαρτυρεω (“witness/testify/give a reference”) bookends chapter 11 on both ends. Hebrews 11:2 “it was for this [faith] that the ancients got a good reference," and now it occurs again at v.39, “testimony/commendation/approval/a good report was given on account of their faith; in other words, “I said I was going to give you a list of elders who had this kind of faith, and now I have just given you this list of people whose faith I have spoken well of.”

• And yet, says the Apostle, none of them collected on the promise! What a startling state­ment! All these great, faithful people, and they didn’t even get to see the fulfillment of what they were trusting God for!

• “The promise” is mentioned only one other time in the book of Hebrews, and that is Hebrews 9:15, where it is called “the eternal inheritance¹.” “So, on account of death having taken place for the redemption of the transgressions upon the first covenant, He is the mediator of a new covenant, so that the ones who have been called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance." (Hebrews 9:15, NAW)

• The verb occurs two more times after Hebrews in the Bible, referring, I think, to the same thing: In 1 Peter 1:9 Peter speaks to all the “chosen pilgrims” about “obtaining the goal of your faith: salvation of souls," and then at the end of the same epistle, Peter tells the faithful elders that “after the Lead Shepherd is brought to light, y'all will obtain the unfading crown of glory!" (1 Peter 5:4, NAW)

• So the promise which the O. T. believers haven’t collected on yet is final glorification.

• But it says in Hebrews 6:15 that Abraham DID obtain the promise. Does this contradict what Heb. 11:39 says that Abraham and the others didn’t obtain the promise?

  • For one thing, the two verbs are different. In Heb. 6:15, it says he epetuchen’ed the promise – he came into contact with it and saw its existence, but in 11:39, it says they didn’t ἐκομίσαντο the promise – it wasn’t fully in their possession to superintend and carry off for themselves².

  • This fits with the progression of fulfillment outlined in Scripture. Abraham saw the birth of Isaac, which was certainly an incipient fulfillment of the promise of nations of offspring, but Abraham didn’t see the millions of the children of Israel in his lifetime, nor did he see Jesus, the one Seed around whom God’s covenant revolved, even through Abraham knew that he was right with God.

  • "[T]hey had the promise, but not the thing; who is called 'the Promise', emphatically, because he is the first and grand promise; and because in him all the promises centre, and are yea, and amen: him the Old Testament saints received not; they, greatly desired to see him in the flesh; they saw him by faith; they believed in him, and rejoiced in the expecta­tion of his coming; but he was not exhibited to them incarnate. Now since these saints so strongly believed, and so cheerfully suffered before Christ came; the apostle's argument is, that much more should the saints now, since Christ is come, and the promises re­ceived, go on believing in him, and readily suffering for his sake." ~John Gill, AD1766

  • Even in your lifetime today, you are not going to see the final results of your faith or the final outcome of God’s plans of which you were a part – unless perhaps you are still alive when Christ returns, but God will let you have some of the blessings He has in store and some of the results of your faith in your lifetime to encourage you, just as He did the Old Testament believers.

• This same phrase “obtain/receive/get back/ἐκομίσαντο the promise/what was promised” is also in Hebrews 10:36 “for ya'll have need of endurance in order that, after y'all have done the will of God, y'all may obtain what was promised.” (NAW)

• Now, the thought doesn’t end there. Most English versions do not end verse 39 with a period. That is because the next verb in v.40 is a participle: “God having foreseen,” which depends upon the main verb “they did not collect.” They did not collect… God having forseen.

  • What is the relationship between those two phrases? The Greek language is not explicit on this point, but I think that the NASB and ESV did well to relate these two phrases for us in English with a causal word “since/because.” “They did not collect because God foresaw.”

  • Once again, God is shown to be a purposeful God who thinks ahead about everything and causes everything to go according to His plan.

v.40 because God provided³ something better for us, that they might not be perfected without us.

• What then was that “better something” which God foresaw and planned and provided for?

  • The promise made to the historic men and women of faith was the last thing referred to in the last verse, the promise that they did not collect on.

  • That is reminiscent of Hebrews 8:6, which said that Jesus “is the mediator of a better covenant legally-instituted upon better promises.” Jesus provides the “better sacrifices” (Heb. 9:23) and the “better hope through which we get close to God” (Heb. 7:19).

  • “better” than an earthly “country” (Heb. 11:16) and “better and longer-lasting” than earthly “possessions” which God had promised to the Israelites (Heb. 10:34), rather these are, as Hebrews 6:9 put it, “...better things concerning y'all, indeed having to do with salvation,” related to the “better resurrection” of eternal life mentioned in Heb. 11:35.

  • Last week, as I was reading a devotional book to my family, entitled Communion With God, by the 17^th century Puritan author John Owen (actually, it was an edited revision by R.J.K. Law in 1991), I ran across a good explanation for how what we have is better: “God’s purpose… was to raise sinners to an inconceivably better condition than they were in before sin entered the world. God now appears more glorious than ever he did before. Now he is seen to be a God who pardons iniquity and sin and who is infinitely rich in grace. God also has infinitely vindicated his justice in the sight of men, angels, and devils in setting forth his Son for a propitiation. We are also more firmly established in God’s favour and are being carried forward to a much greater weight of glory than was revealed before. It is no wonder, then, that Paul exclaims, ‘great is the mystery of godli­ness.’ We receive ‘grace for grace.’ That grace lost in Adam is replaced by that infinitely better grace in Christ. This is deep wisdom indeed. The love of Christ to his church and his union with his church...” (p.86).

• What does it mean that “they would not be perfected without us”?

  • Reviewing what has already been stated about perfection in Hebrews, obedience to the law and its sacrificial ceremonies did not make the Old Testament saints “telios/perfect”

    • Hebrews 7:19 “for the Law perfected nothing...”

    • Hebrews 9:9 “...sacrifices are being offered that are not able to perfect in conscience the one who ministers”

    • Hebrews 10:1 For it is a shadow of the good things that are going to happen which the law has, not the shape itself of the matters, and [at] no time is it able to perfect those who approach with the same sacrifices which they are offering in perpetuity [year] after year... 12 but (on the other hand) this Man, after offering one sacrifice for sins, took office in perpetuity at God's right hand... 14 As a result, by means of one offering, He has perfected in perpetuity those who are being sanctified.” (NAW)

  • So, it is after the coming of Christ in His death and resurrection that this perfection started happening – that happened during the lifetime of the people to whom the book of Hebrews was written.

    • According to this sense of perfection, God had the men and women of faith through­out the thousands of years of the Old Testament wait until the “fullness of the time had come, [then] God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.” (Galatians 4:4-5, NKJV)

    • That redemption, also called “forensic justification,” was accomplished for all God’s children at once, as one event, even though different ones of the universal church throughout history were born and died at different points along the timeline. Calvary makes us one body perfected together in God’s eyes by the blood of Jesus.

    • When such justified persons die, their conscious soul is removed from their physical body and immediately enters the presence of Christ. This is taught in passages like

      • 2 Cor 5:8 “absent from the body… to be at home with the Lord”

      • Phil 1:23 “to depart to be with Christ,”

      • Luke 23:43 “Today you will be with me in paradise”

      • 2 Cor. 5:1“if the earthly house of our tabernacle be dissolved, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.

      • Theologians call this the “intermediate state,” and passages like Luke 16:19-31, 1 Thessalonians 5:10, and Revelation 14:13 indicate that believers in this state will be alive and conscious and happy and with Christ.

    • However, this is not their final, perfected state. The final state of believers will include:

      • a reunification with their body (1 Cor. 15:42-54)

      • and eternal life in a new heavens and new earth

      • without the stress of unrighteous people in them

      • and without the stress of unresolved justice (2 Peter 3:13)

      • and without any more boundaries between believers in heaven and on earth (Luke 16:26, Rev. 21).

  • This brings us to the other sense in which the word “perfected” is used in the Bible, and that has to do with the future, ultimate perfection of our body and soul at Christ’s return.

    • Speaking of this latter kind of perfection, even the great Apostle Paul, after over thirty years of being a Christian confessed in his letter to the Philippians, “I don't mean to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection. But I press on to possess that perfection for which Christ Jesus first possessed me." (NLT, Philippians 3:12)

    • This future perfection (called being “glorified” in Rom. 8:30), is also an event which the entire body of Christ across the span of history will experience together at Christ’s return.

    • The Apostle John explained the relationship between the perfection brought to us in the first coming of Christ and the perfection that will be brought to us in the second coming of Christ thus: “Loved ones, now we are children of God, and what we will be [in the future] has not yet been brought to light. We know that whenever it is brought to light, we will be similar to Him because we will see Him just as He is... And you know that He was revealed so that He might remove [our] sins, and sin does not exist in Him.” (1 John 3:2&5, NAW)

      • In His first coming, Jesus brought the perfection of the “removal of our sins” by paying the price of His death, making us children of God.

      • But there is a future coming of Christ which will make us different in a way we don’t know yet. Who knows whether it will be our grandchildren’s generation or our tenth-great grandchildren’s generation that we are all waiting for to see that happen, but when it happens we will be glorified together as a community of believers from across all time, all at once, forming a unified, but complex bride for Christ at His marriage feast in heaven! (Rev. 19:6-9)

  • The author of Hebrews has also pointed out that Christ was able to bring perfection to the Old Testament and New Testament believers together, in part, because He Himself experienced perfection as a result of His sufferings:

    • Hebrews 2:10 “For it was appropriate to Him, the chief-leader of their salvation, for whom all things exist and by whom all things exist, to accomplish perfection through sufferings, having led many children into glory”

    • Hebrews 5:9-10 “He learned obedience from the things which He suffered. After He was thus perfected, He became legally-responsible for eternal salvation to all those who obey Him.”

    • Hebrews 7:28 “For the Torah appoints men who have weakness to be high priests, but the word of the post-Torah oath-taking [appoints] a Son who has been made perfect for ever." (NAW, cf. Luke 13:32)

• Why would God not want the saints who have gone before to be perfected without us?

  • Because Christ sees us as one body – His bride!

  • Something no Christian should miss in reading Hebrews chapter 11 is the unity of believers across the Old and New Testaments. Sure, the book of Hebrews harps on the differences between the Testaments, but Hebrews 11 insists that:

    • we are all cut from the same cloth of sinful humanity,

    • we are all saved by the same God,

    • and our relationship with God is of the same faith,

    • and we will experience the perfections of the same heaven together,

    • and live together forever!

  • "Consider what a thing it is, and how great, that Abraham should be sitting, and the Apostle Paul, waiting till you have been perfected, that then they may be able to receive their re­ward. For the Saviour has told them before that unless we also are present, He will not give it them... And you are vexed, that you haven’t not yet received the reward?... He appointed one time of crowning for all; so he that gained the victory so many years before, will re­ceive his crown with you! Do you see [God’s] tender carefulness? ... For if we are ‘all one body,’ the pleasure becomes greater to this body, when it is crowned altogether, and not part-by-part. For the righteous... rejoice in the welfare of their brothers, as in their own. So... to be glorified all together, is a great delight." ~John Chrysostom, AD400

    • We were made to marvel together at our Lord’s salvation. Those of us in the twenty-first century may look forward to hearing from Peter himself how he managed to keep trusting Jesus while his wife was crucified and as he later hung upside down on his own cross.

    • But I think Peter will be just as filled with wonder at how you kept trusting Jesus even though you had video screens on your person at all times capable of showing you anything in the world you could possibly wish to see, and yet you worshipped Jesus instead.

12:1 As for us, for this very reason, having company with such an extensive cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also keep running with perseverance the contest being laid out before us, starting to put away from ourselves every hindrance and sin that hangs around closely,

• The main verb in chapter 12 verse 1 is “let us run.” This main verb is supported by three parti­ciples which describe the circumstances under which we are to run, namely “having such a cloud of witnesses,” “putting away every hindrance and sin,” and, in verse 2 “looking unto Jesus,” but the main verb is “let us run.”

  • Not just stumble forward, mind you, but “run” in the footsteps of these saints before us.

  • In the book of Galatians, the Apostle Paul portrays living with faith and obedience to Jesus as "running,"

    • first describing himself: "I... set before them [that is, Peter, James, and John]... the gospel that I proclaim among the Gentiles, in order to make sure I was not running or had not run in vain" (Galatians 2:2, ESV),

    • and then describing the church in Galatia: "You were running well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth?" (Galatians 5:7, ESV)

  • Although many commentators note comparisons to the Olympic races in Greece, I have a hard time thinking that such a reference would be very winsome to devout Jews. The comparison between faith and running a race could just as well have come from passages in the Old Testament like:

    • Psalm 119:32 ("I ran in the way of your commandments...")

    • and Isaiah 40:31 ("Those who wait upon the LORD... will run and not tire; they will walk and not grow faint").

  • Nowadays, we think of running as recreation that people do for fun, just to get the exercise, but in Bible times, "runners" were usually message-carriers:

    • The Greek Old Testament often⁴ describes the messengers sent by a king or an army commander with this same word, "runners," for instance in 2 Chron. 30:6 “And the runners went with the letters from the king and the princes to all Israel and Judah...."

    • And, of course, that was the original context of the first Marathon run – a message that desperately needed to be communicated between an army in the field and the leaders of a city 26 miles away.

  • This occupational (instead of recreational) reason for running, sheds additional light on why Christians are portrayed as running:

    • It is not just to show off how fast we can run – that is figuratively, it is not to show off how impressive our faith is.

    • And it is not running with faith merely to be engaged in movement – like a chicken running around with its head cut off, gaining tougher muscles in its legs is pointless.

    • We are running because we are couriers with a message, “we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God.” (2 Cor. 5:20, NKJV)

    • I think that by saying “let us run,” the author of Hebrews is implying that Christians are to be engaged not merely in the activity of believing, but also in the activity of sharing that belief with others!

    • To run with that message, you have to believe it yourself and then throw off the dead weight that keeps you from running that mission efficiently, and then run with it and share it with others.

  • The running here in Hebrews 12:1 is called an agwna – the same root we get “agonize” from. Everywhere else this word occurs in the Bible, it is translated “fight” or “conflict” or “struggle,” where there is “contention/opposition” against you⁵. This run is not going to be a cakewalk!

    • There is a “roaring lion [named Satan] seeking whom he may devour” (1 Peter 5:8),

    • There is a sin nature inside of you, eager to surrender to lust (Rom. 7:20),

    • and there is a world running in the opposite direction, annoyed with you for “not plung[ing] into the same flood of dissipation” with them (1 Pet. 4:4).

  • And this run is not just a quick sprint, either; it is to be “with endurance”!

• When I ran Track in High School, I ran long distance. I was too slow for the 100 meter or even 400 meter races. I did o.k. at the half mile, and better in the mile and 2-mile, although it got boring by the 8^th time around that quarter-mile track! It took endurance.

  • It took running from school all the way to my house ten miles along the Cahaba River to condition for it.

  • It took running what we called “suicides” - half a mile up-hill as fast as we could from the entrance to the Broken Bow subdivision.

  • It took running for hours non-stop along Oak Mountain, and one time running a grueling five miles from the bottom to the top of Signal Mountain.

  • In Hebrews 10:36, we’ve been already exhorted, “y’all have need of endurance in order that, after you have done the will of God, you may obtain what was promised."

  • The Greek word hupomones, translated “perseverance/patience/endurance” is a com­-pound of a preposition which literally means “under” plus a form of the word for “one.” Perseverance is about sticking with “one” thing and not getting out from “under” it.

  • It’s going to be a long race for the rest of your life. In Revelation 2:10, Jesus said, “...Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life.” In order to make it to the end still trusting God, you are going to have to keep yourself focused on one single thing, and that is trusting Jesus.

  • Thankfully, this agonizing contest of trusting Jesus and sharing our faith (which will last so long and require so much perseverance) is not an out-of-control impossibility. Accord­ing to Hebrews 12:1, it is “being laid out in front of us.”

    • The fact that this verb is passive – it is being set forth before you rather than you chart­ing it out yourself – points to the fact that the run of your life is under God’s control. God is working all things together for your good according to His plans. (Rom. 8:28)

    • Also, the fact that this verb is in the present tense – it is being laid out rather than having been marked out in advance leaving you to find your way alone – also points to the fact that the run of your faith is under God’s control, moment by moment. You can’t see what’s ahead, but God will “lay it out before you” when the time comes.

    • The Nineteenth Century Scottish commentator John Brown wrote of this: “Christian duty… is regulated exertion… The racer must keep to the course prescribed; he must ‘run the race set before him’… Christian duty must be regulated by the law of Christ. It consists not merely in doing, but in doing what Christ has commanded; not merely in suffering, but in suffering what Christ has appointed.” And as we do what Christ commanded, He says, “I will be with you always!” (Matthew 28:20)

• I’m going to have to stop here and consider the three participles describing what we need to do while we’re running in the next sermon.

APPENDIX: Greek Text & English Versions of Hebrews 11:38-12:1^A