Colleen and Nikki continue through the book of Hebrews. They talk through the first half of the “Faith Chapter” where the great men and women of old are presented as believers. Transcription by Gwen Billington.
Colleen: Welcome to Former Adventist podcast. I’m Colleen Tinker.
Nikki: And I’m Nikki Stevenson.
Colleen: Thanks for joining us again for another journey into Hebrews. This week we are starting chapter 11. I’m sure that’s a familiar chapter to almost everybody who’s hearing this because who doesn’t know the “faith chapter” in the Bible? But it’s become a whole new chapter to me this week, and Nikki, we were talking about that earlier. We both saw some things we had never really seen before, so I’m excited that we’re going to talk about this. But before we do, I just want to remind you that if you want to contact us, if you have questions or comments, you can email us at formeradventist@gmail.com. You can go to proclamationmagazine.com. You can subscribe to our weekly newsletter, our weekly blogs, and you can also donate to Life Assurance Ministries or subscribe to our magazine. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram, and be sure that wherever you listen to podcasts, you rate our program and write a review. And we appreciate you listening to us. We appreciate you joining us in this study through this really astonishing Book of Hebrews, which basically addresses every single twist of doctrine that we experienced as Adventists, and I never would have expected that Hebrews would unpack my Adventist worldview so completely. So, Nikki, what did you think, as an Adventist, about Hebrews chapter 11?
Nikki: Well, I knew it was the faith chapter. I think when I would actually read through it, I would find myself a little mystified about some of the people who were in it because I had the idea that if you made it in the Bible, you were either a really bad person, and you were being shown to be a very bad person, or you were a really good person, that you were a righteous person, that God’s people were righteous people or they were failing. Those were kind of the only two options, and so the idea that there would be anyone in this faith chapter who really blew it was confusing to me.
Colleen: I actually did think this chapter was supposed to show us great examples that we could emulate. If we could just be like them, we could please God. Don’t ask me how Samson figured into that and Jephthah, but you know, nevertheless, giants of the faith, whatever that meant. It’s interesting what I’m discovering now. These people weren’t in the Bible because they were good people. These people are in the Bible because they believed God.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: They trusted God in a way that I did not understand as an Adventist and in a way that makes sense to me now that I’m born again, but I’m understanding at deeper levels the more I study these words of Scripture. So why don’t we just plunge right in, Nikki. It’s interesting to me that the first seven verses of this chapter are all about what we might call the primordial period of the world, the period of the world before the flood. We don’t know very much about that time of history. In His sovereign wisdom, God did not leave us very much detail. He gave us enough to know who we are, where we came from, how sin entered the world, but He did not tell us very much about the people that lived before the flood. What we do know of the godly men of that age we know only in a few sentences, and we’re going to hear about some of them here in the first seven verses of Hebrews 11. So would you like to read those first seven verses, Nikki?
Nikki: “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it the people of old received their commendation. By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible. By faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, through which he was commended as righteous, God commending him by accepting his gifts. And through his faith, though he died, he still speaks. By faith Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death, and he was not found, because God had taken him. Now before he was taken he was commended as having pleased God. And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who seek Him. By faith Noah, being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen, in reverent fear constructed an ark for the saving of his household. By this he condemned the world and became an heir of the righteousness that comes by faith.”
Colleen: Before we recorded today, Nikki, we were talking quite a while about what we had individually thought about while we studied for this passage. Would you mind talking a little bit about what came to your mind as you were reading the first verse? What hit you about that that was new?
Nikki: I think that it was new to me because we have just gone through chapters 1 through 10, and we’ve spent so much time thinking about the letter to the Hebrews, and I realized, in a way that I never had before, that my previous understanding of faith was almost fairytale-like, but the way that the author of Hebrews is writing about faith, the way the Holy Spirit teaches us about faith, it’s rooted in reality. It’s rooted in substance and something true, and we just walked through the assurance that we have on the basis of the work of Christ, His once-for-all sacrifice, the confidence that we now have to enter the Most Holy Place and to draw near to God on the basis of His sacrifice. So this faith is the assurance. It’s not the wish, it’s not the hope, it’s the assurance of what we hope for. That hope is not the “I hope it’s true” kind of hope, it’s the sustaining hope of reality. That word “conviction” is not just a commitment to believe for something. That word “conviction” is – it’s knowing that this is real. I think that for me, when I look at this and I realize what God has shown me to be true about Himself in His word, it makes me think of the movie the Matrix.
Colleen: Oooh, me too.
Nikki: It’s a point of no return. It’s knowing what’s real and knowing that you can’t talk yourself out of what’s real. It’s real. And God showed it to me, and I am assured of it, and I’m convicted that it’s true, and now my whole world has changed. The way I see reality has changed. And that affects all of my next steps in life.
Colleen: That is exactly true for me as well, and that metaphor of “The Matrix” is one I’ve thought of too. We even use the same words we used as Adventists inside the Matrix.
Nikki: Yeah. Um-hmm.
Colleen: But they mean something different when we see that what we were believing was invented, it was made up, it was a twisting of reality so that we would be kept inside. But now that we’ve met the real living Christ, who has finished His work, everything’s new, everything’s different, and there’s substance to what we believe. It was helpful for me – in the study notes of my NASB study Bible, it gave alternate translations for the Greek underlying the key words in verse 1. So in my NASB where it says, “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen,” it said that an alternate translation for the word translated “assurance” can be “substance.” Some versions do say “the substance of things hoped for,” but it can be either “substance” or “assurance,” and if you think about that, “substance” implies weight and mass and reality.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: It’s not something that’s an ephemeral hope, a wish, a dream. It’s real, it exists. So “assurance” and “substance” are both ways of explaining the word that is what faith is. We know that what we hope for is real, not a maybe, but a real certainty. Another way we can translate the words “hoped for” can be the word “expected.” We can have the substance of things expected. We know that what we are hoping for or expecting is real. And then the word “conviction” may be translated as “evidence.” So where it says, “Faith is the conviction of things not seen,” we can hear that as “the evidence of things not seen.” All of these are viable translations of the Greek underlying them. So when I think about all six of these translations instead of just three, it gives me a bigger picture, and what I’m seeing is, faith, unlike the way I used to picture it as an Adventist, where I don’t even know how to explain it, Nikki, but I used to have this idea that if I had faith, it was like, I’m choosing, I’m choosing to believe that what God said is true. So I’m choosing to believe that the Sabbath is the seal of God. I’m choosing to believe that Jesus is up in heaven investigating and cleansing with His – atoning with His blood. I’m choosing to believe that the things I was told are true. But that’s not faith.
Nikki: Uh-uh.
Colleen: That’s just a decision of my mortal brain deciding I’m going to adopt a system of belief and then deciding that I’m going to live my life on the basis of that decision. But faith, in the Bible, is something substantive, real, it exists. The reality existed before I was born. It’s going to exist for eternity. And like you pointed out, faith is based on the reality of the Lord Jesus and His finished work, who He is, what He did, and what He is doing. And that is eternal. There’s no if or maybe about it.
Nikki: Yeah. And it’s – like you said, we’re using the same words. We’re using the same Bible we used in Adventism, and so trying to interpret how we understand it now compared to how we once did, it’s so tricky. It’s so hard to articulate, and that’s one of the reasons that I know that it is the work of God in us that helps us see what’s true, through the reading of His Scripture.
Colleen: And through our own new birth, where the Holy Spirit indwells us and helps us to understand His word.
Nikki: Yes.
Colleen: It’s really interesting. In fact, I find this substantive understanding of faith to be so significant that – I know we were talking about this earlier, Nikki – I’ve just been praying for the last day that we’ll be able to talk about it in a way that makes sense to the people listening because I know we share the background with most of our listeners, and faith is not what we were taught. And another thing it’s not is, “I’m believing for something.”
Nikki: Right.
Colleen: “I’m believing for COVID quarantine to be over next month in the second week.” No. Faith is based on Jesus, not in a wish or something I want. I can’t make it come to pass by thinking and speaking about it. Faith is what Jesus has done, is doing, and has promised to do. And I know it’s true, and I can take that to the bank.
Nikki: And can I just add to that? When Martha went to Jesus and she was upset that her brother had died, He asked her if she believed in what He told her about Himself, and she said, “Yes, I believe you are the Christ.” And then they move on from there, and He resurrects Lazarus. Her belief, her faith, wasn’t in the miracle of her brother being resurrected. Jesus didn’t tell her He was going to resurrect him just moments from that conversation. He revealed who He was, that He was the resurrection and the life. And she confessed her faith in who He is. God functions according to His own will, and our job is to believe who He says He is and to wait on Him.
Colleen: In fact, that leads us right into verse 2, where it talks about the men of old. Would you like to reread that, Nikki, just to remind us of what it says?
Nikki: It says, “For by it the people of old received their commendation.”
Colleen: So in verse 2, the men of old, or the people of old, gained their approval, or commendation, by this faith, this faith that is substance. Now, you might say, how can these people who lived before the flood, how can they have gained their approval based on the finished work of Jesus, as we just said? Well, we know that Jesus is the lamb slain from the foundation of the earth. We’ve also learned in these first ten chapters of Hebrews that the Old Testament foreshadowed Jesus, foretold Him, gave Israel laws and sacrifices to foreshadow Him. The sins of the past were not punished, because the reality of Jesus’ death was coming. So even though Jesus died at a specific spot in time, as we said before, His death works backwards and forwards. It’s for everyone, even the men that lived before the flood, even the women that lived before the flood. Those that had faith have that faith because they believed God, and the eternal sacrifice of Jesus is what gives humanity, anybody, whenever they lived, the ability to have faith and to be with God because of their faith. So in verses 3 through 7, we’re going to meet some of these people. Could you reread verse 3 again? And I find it interesting that as the author of Hebrews talks through the men of old, the people of old, who were commended for their faith, he doesn’t just start with a random name, he goes back to the very beginning.
Nikki: So verse 3 says, “By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.”
Colleen: By this faith, this confidence based on a real person who has done real things, whose promises cannot fail, we understand that everything that we see and can’t see, that everything that has been made was made by what?
Nikki: By the word of God.
Colleen: And we know that’s true. We know from Genesis 1:1 that in the beginning God created. He spoke and it was done. John 1:1, “In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Without Him was not anything made that was made.” We know this from all through the Bible. But the word of God is powerful. It contains life. It makes what we see and it makes what we can’t see. There is nothing created that He did not make by His own word. So we know that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, but I think it’s really interesting that an alternate translation for the word translated “worlds” can also be “ages.” It would say, “By faith we understand that the ages, or worlds, were prepared by the word of God.” Well, what does that suggest for the history of mankind?
Nikki: That God prepared all the times.
Colleen: He did. The times, the ages, the primordial time before the flood, the time of Israel, the time of Jesus’ incarnation, the time of His ministry, the time of the church being on the earth, the time of His future kingdom. All of these times and ages, He has prepared. He has made them as real as if we had actually seen them all. They are all there in Him, and all the worlds. So the author of Hebrews is basing the rest of this chapter on the fact that we are here, the world is here, the time we live is here, the universe is here because of God’s word. He prepared it. This isn’t random. It’s not an accident. And I just want to say that even the things that are invisible He has done, and this also includes our new birth. Our new birth is just as real as the heavens and the earth, and it is just as much a miracle. Talk to me about Abel, Nikki. Would you read verse 4 and talk a bit about Abel.
Nikki: “By faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, through which he was commended as righteous, God commending him by accepting his gifts. And through his faith, though he died, he still speaks.”
Colleen: What did you think about Abel?
Nikki: As an Adventist, I think I believed that his sacrifice was better because he was obeying, he was doing what he was told, because, you know, in the Adventist worldview they had the law, and God told them how to sacrifice and what to sacrifice, and so he was doing the right thing, and Cain wasn’t. But what we see here is that, if I may expand that word “faith” with verse 1, by “the assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of things not seen,” Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain. So we see a heart condition, that Abel went before God with complete conviction in the things he couldn’t see and the assurance of what he was hoping for. He went before God with a heart that was open to and trusting God. That was kind of new for me to see this time going through.
Colleen: Isn’t that interesting? And I know that many people say – not just Adventists, but many people say that Abel offered the right sacrifice, sheep, lambs, and Cain offered the wrong sacrifice and refused to get a lamb from Abel’s flock or whatever, that he didn’t offer the sacrifice God had commanded. Well, actually, in Genesis 4 it doesn’t say anywhere that God had commanded what kind of sacrifice to offer. Now, there may be a suggestion that an animal sacrifice was involved because He did give Adam and Eve animal skins to cover their shame, but it’s not stated, so we can’t speculate beyond what the word says. If Cain was a farmer, it is natural for a farmer to bring his firstfruits to God. In fact, that was one of the offerings that God commanded Israel to bring, the firstfruits. So we don’t really know that Cain shouldn’t have offered his fruits and vegetables. We just know, according to Hebrews, exactly like you said, Nikki, Abel had a different heart condition.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: He had faith. He believed in the absolute solid promises of God, and apparently Cain did not. And that’s what made Abel’s sacrifice better. And what does it say there about even though he is dead, how does he still speak to us? I mean, this is a kind of enigmatic phrase. What do you make of that, “through faith, though he is dead, he still speaks”?
Nikki: Well, his story is in the word of God forever.
Colleen: Um-hmm.
Nikki: And he’s a witness to us even now.
Colleen: And I think it’s interesting that, if faith is this real, tangible thing that’s based on God doing things eternally that He says He will do, no matter what fallible humanity does, then faith exists and is not dependent upon whether a human is physically alive or not. If a person trusted God, that faith was based in God, not in the human’s mind. So that faith continues to be a witness, even though Abel’s body is dead. Even though he’s in the ground dead, he still speaks because he trusted God, and his witness and his spirit is not gone, and his faith is not gone because it’s founded in God. So in verse 5 we go to another Old Testament primordial great man, Enoch. Nikki, would you mind reading verse 5 again, please?
Nikki: “By faith Enoch was taken up so that he did not see death, and he was not found, because God had taken him. Now before he was taken he was commended as having pleased God.”
Colleen: What did you think of Enoch as an Adventist?
Nikki: I didn’t really know much about him. I thought he was the only perfect person besides Jesus because he was able to go straight to be with God, and I thought he was the goal. That we wanted to be like Enoch to – if you lived perfectly, you wouldn’t have to die. I don’t know, I just had that picture in my head.
Colleen: Oh, yes. You know what? I did too. I did too. He was our model for perfect living.
Nikki: Yeah.
Colleen: So, do you think he was perfect?
Nikki: No, uh-uh.
Colleen: Was he a perfect human? No. He’s a son of Adam just like all of us. He was born depraved just like all of us. It wasn’t his behavior or his righteous choices that made him go to heaven to be with God. What does it say caused him to go to be with God?
Nikki: He was taken up.
Colleen: Yeah, on the basis of his faith. Once again, this substantive reality that’s based in the work of God. Enoch trusted and believed God in a way that made him completely submissive to God, and we don’t know the story of Enoch, but this is not a story of a man who kept the law or who made all the right choices. This is the story of a man who was so trusting of God, so filled with the faith that comes from believing that God cannot lie and that God’s promises were for him that God took him. Now, it’s interesting now, from a Christian perspective, I look at Enoch and I see that this is an example of God taking a believing man home to Him by rapture.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: Now, I know, it’s interesting, Adventists will say, “Oh, no, no, no. The rapture isn’t true.” But the word is just a word meaning “caught up,” harpazó. Enoch was harpazóed. [Laughter.]
Nikki: [Laughter.]
Colleen: He was caught up! And so this is an example that God doesn’t have to resurrect everybody to be with Him. When He says He will come for His people when He comes back, those who are living will be caught up just like Enoch. And Enoch is an example of that. He’s like proof to us that it will happen. And it’s interesting that this all happened before the flood, when the earth was becoming increasingly wicked.
Nikki: There’s no command in Scripture to seek to be like Enoch, to seek to obtain what Enoch obtained. It’s completely God’s – it’s up to Him, it’s His prerogative what He does and why He does it.
Colleen: It’s completely inside out from the way I thought of it as an Adventist. It’s also interesting that it doesn’t say how, but clearly God let Him know, he received the witness, he obtained the witness before being taken up that he was pleasing to God, so in some way the Lord was gracious to Enoch and let him know that he had found favor with Him. He let him know that he was going to be with Him. I’ve often heard people say, “I wonder what Mrs. Enoch thought when Enoch didn’t come home for dinner.” And that is an interesting question, but the fact is, Enoch had received the confidence from God that he was pleasing to Him. And what a wonderful thing to know that God sees us as His, and we can know that, on this side of the cross, by trusting in Jesus. So would you read verses 6 and 7, please.
Nikki: “And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who seek Him. By faith Noah, being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen, in reverent fear constructed an ark for the saving of his household. By this he condemned the world and became an heir of the righteousness that comes by faith.”
Colleen: Well, I think it’s interesting that the author of Hebrews reminds us again, here in the middle of this chapter, “without faith it’s impossible to please Him.” And part of that faith is believing that He is and that He rewards those who seek Him. That’s a really interesting thing, that faith includes not just belief in things happening, but belief in God Himself and that He does reward those who seek Him. All of these people who had faith knew that God rewarded them with Himself, with eternity, with His own gifts, which only He can give that were not just physical on the earth, but they were real for eternity.
Nikki: This verse makes me think of the verse in Romans that says those who are in the flesh cannot please God. So there are so many people right now who believe that they are believing unto faith, but if they don’t actually have this full assurance, if they don’t have this complete conviction, then what they’re doing, it’s just rote moralism or their own interpretation of Scripture or whatever it is that they believe to be true. You can’t please God if you don’t believe God.
Colleen: My goodness. You can’t accidentally please Him. So what did faith bring about in Noah, Nikki? What struck you about verse 7?
Nikki: Noah believed what God told him. He believed that this flood was coming, and he obeyed His command to build the ark. It was very specific how to do it, and he did it, in reverent fear.
Colleen: I can imagine there would be reverent fear. There had never been rain on the earth. There had never been a flood. God was going to judge the world, and He told Noah. That’s a fearful thing. And He told Noah very specifically who would be saved. Who was that?
Nikki: It was going to be him and the members of his household.
Colleen: And yet we also learn from Peter that he was a preacher of righteousness, and while he was building the ark, he was preaching about God. He spent his years building that ark, preaching, and it says that by building that ark with reverent fear, he condemned the world. What does that suggest? How did that condemn the world?
Nikki: Well, he had all the evidence out in front of them. He was preaching, he was giving them the truth, he was acting on his faith, and they were suppressing that and rejecting that, and that was an act of condemnation.
Colleen: They refused to believe. Why would a man dedicate his life to building something so monstrous and telling them about God, and then they would look at that and not believe? He became an heir of the righteousness which is according to faith. Now, an heir is the person who receives the benefits from somebody else, and he received the benefits of righteousness according to faith from God. He acted on what God said, even though there was no physical historical precedent for what God asked him to do. Yet he knew God, he trusted God, and he did what God told him, on the basis of who God was and who he knew Him to be. It struck me when I read this that this was the kind of faith that Eve lacked when the serpent told her to eat that fruit. I mean, she had heard from Adam that the day she eats it she will die. The serpent told her, “Oh, no. Oh, no, you won’t die, but you will become like a god, and you will know good and evil.” And she was willing to ponder, contemplate, and reinterpret the words of God instead of just believing God and acting on them. She sinned with that serpent because she lacked the faith that would cause her to hang onto God’s word and do what it said, because God said it. Now we come to a little discussion of Abraham. Now, we’ve had discussions about Abraham before, but let’s just read what it says, what the author of Hebrews tells us about Abraham. Would you mind reading verses 8-10, please?
Nikki: “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. 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.”
Colleen: What thoughts did you have about Abraham here, in these three verses?
Nikki: Abraham acted on what he was told by God because he believed God, because God revealed Himself to him and told him what was going to happen, what He was going to do, and he believed what He said, and then he acted on that.
Colleen: We’ve talked about this before, but Abraham was not selected by God because he failed to worship the idols and trusted Him instead. No, he was an idol worshipper, but when God appeared to him, Abraham believed Him, and he followed Him out of the land of Ur. He obeyed by going to a place which he was to receive for an inheritance, even though he didn’t know where he was going, but he believed that God told him that. I think it’s so interesting, in verse 9, where it says, by faith he lived how, in this land? How did he live?
Nikki: As in a foreign land. He lived in tents.
Colleen: He lived as an alien in the land of promise. Isn’t that ironic? God tells him, “Leave Ur.” He uproots his whole family. He uproots Abraham, Abraham’s father, Abraham’s brother, Abraham’s nephew Lot, Abraham’s wife Sarah. He takes them out of Ur, where they’re at home, and He says, “I’m taking you to a place you don’t know. It’s going to be your inheritance,” and Abraham lived in that land that God promised as an alien in tents. He never owned land there. In fact, the only plot of land that Abraham ever owned was the cave of Machpelah, which he obtained when his wife Sarah died, and he buried her in a cave. That was the only plot of land in that promised land that Abraham ever owned. He lived his whole life believing God, and yet he never owned the land in which he lived, which was the land that had been promised to him. And not only did he not own the land, who else lived as aliens in the land?
Nikki: Isaac and Jacob.
Colleen: His son and his grandson, both of whom also received the same promise. A repetition of the same promise that God had made to Abraham, God made also to Isaac and also to Jacob. They would inherit the land, they would have many descendants, and God would bless them and the world through them. It was not just Abraham but his third generation descendants. And then, even beyond that, when you think to his fourth generation, it was the Children of Israel, who were brought out of Egypt, who finally came back in and took that land because God conquered it for them. It was an act of faith, it was a life of faith for Abraham. He believed God and never stopped.
Nikki: I was struck by verse 10 that “he was looking forward to the city that has foundations whose designer and builder is God.” It seems to me that Abraham understood things that we weren’t told he was told.
Colleen: It does seem that way, and it says he’s looking for a city which has foundations. “Foundations” suggest something permanent.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: And it’s saying that he’s looking for a city, not being an alien, not being in a tent, but a city which has foundations, built by God. So there is something far beyond this land. Even though the land was promised, Abraham was looking for even more. This city, whose builder and maker is God, is actually going to be identified in the next chapter of Hebrews, Hebrews 12:22, where the author calls it Mt. Zion and the city of the living God. And again in Hebrews 13:14, it’s going to be called the city which is to come, and in Revelation 21 we have references to the New Jerusalem and the Holy City. So we find out that Abraham somehow knew that God was doing something eternal, far in the future, but as real as that land on which he lived in his tents. Abraham looking for this city with foundations reminded me of what Peter says in 1 Peter 1: “The prophets who prophesied of the grace that would come to you made careful searches and inquiries, seeking to know what person or time the Spirit of Christ within them was indicating as He predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories to follow. And it was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves, but you, in these things which now have been announced to you through those who preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven – things into which angels long to look.” Once again we’re seeing an evidence here in the New Testament that God let His man Abraham know more than we’re told he knew. And he knew there was something eternal and future that was coming. Do you mind reading 11 and 12? We move here from speaking of Abraham to speaking of Sarah, his wife.
Nikki: “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.”
Colleen: What do you think about Sarah when you read this?
Nikki: Well, this is redeeming Sarah in my head because, I don’t know, the Old Testament left me with the image of her laughing in her tent, not believing God. [Laughter.]
Colleen: [Laughter.] Right.
Nikki: But this says that she had power to conceive, since she considered Him faithful who had promised. She trusted God’s promise. That gave her the power to conceive. That’s incredible.
Colleen: Can you imagine being 90 years old and hearing you’re going to bear your only child and that this is going to be the child through whom all of God’s promises are going to be fulfilled? That’s a pretty overwhelming promise.
Nikki: Yeah.
Colleen: And I can understand her laughing in her tent when she heard that Angel of the Lord, who was preincarnate Christ, deliver that message to Abraham. But this tells us she did believe. She considered God was faithful and that He would do what He said. And I think it’s interesting that it says she herself received the ability to conceive. It’s just important, I think, to point out how many times God’s promises are accomplished in the Bible through miraculous births.
Nikki: Yeah.
Colleen: Isaac is so foreshadowing the birth of Jesus, but its also important to notice that Isaac’s birth was not an immaculate conception. Sarah conceived, and she didn’t conceive by the Lord. This was Abraham’s son. God did something miraculous for those two, at their age in life, and they bore a child that was the child of both of them, but a miraculous birth nonetheless. In verse 12, where it says “Even of one man, and him as good as dead,” it’s interesting because that’s exactly the image that’s used in Romans 4, where it’s talking about the faith of Abraham, and in Romans 4 it says about Abraham, “He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead (since he was about 100 years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb. No unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what He had promised. That is why his faith was ‘counted to him as righteousness.'” That’s in Romans 4:18-22. So it’s the same idea here. These people could not conceive a child, but they did, the child of promise, by God’s grace, and both of them believed that God could make this happen, and He did.
Nikki: And the faith that we see from Abraham and from Sarah and from Noah, it’s trusting God when everything else you know about the world and about reality would argue with you and say, “No, this isn’t possible.” It’s trusting God in the face of judgment from everyone around you who would look at your situation and say, “No, that’s not possible, you’ve lost your mind.” Or as the world would say now, “You’re religion is just a crutch.”
Colleen: Oh, my. Good point.
Nikki: It’s not a crutch. It’s actually hard to walk the path that God sets before us. It’s not the easy thing to do. Trusting God in the face of believing that what He’s saying to you is just not possible, that’s hard.
Colleen: It is hard. And then, in the next four verses, we have a summary statement of all of these people. What does it say, Nikki, in 13-16 about all of these people?
Nikki: “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 desired a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared for them a city.”
Colleen: Isn’t that awesome?
Nikki: Yeah.
Colleen: They all died in faith, and again, this is not just holding onto a wish or a dream. This is believing in the actual substantive convictions promised by God, which are eternally real, even if they haven’t yet experienced them in person. All of them died in faith, even though they didn’t receive the promises, but again we have that insight, that God let them see what the future fulfillment was. He let them know that He had an eternal fulfillment for all of His physical promises, and they were going to inherit everything He said.
Nikki: And they knew death wasn’t the end.
Colleen: Oh, my goodness, that’s such a good point. Talk about that a bit.
Nikki: I remember reading this just after leading Adventism, the first time I read through Hebrews, and reading that first part, “These all died in faith, not having received the things promised,” and just kind of thinking, “Awww, how sad. They trusted these things were going to happen, and they died before they ever did.” Because I still had this kind of frame of mind that death ends these things, and if it didn’t happen while you were alive on earth, then it’s not going to happen. But no, they greeted them from afar. And they knew that they were strangers and exiles on earth. They knew death wasn’t the end. They died in faith. They didn’t die going, “Well, God didn’t keep that promise.” Can I tell you how many times – it’s really sad – I’ve heard of Adventists who on their deathbed were sad because God didn’t keep the promise to them that if they ate healthy they’d never have cancer.
Colleen: Oh, that’s true.
Nikki: These men and women, they died in faith, believing still what God said was true.
Colleen: That is such a great point. And you know what that reminds me of? It reminds me of Jesus saying to the Pharisees, “God is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He is the God of the living, not of the dead.”
Nikki: Yes.
Colleen: These people died knowing that they were not disappearing. They’re the living. And in 14, “For those who say such things make it clear that they are seeking a country of their own.” And isn’t that such a cool thing? That we can know that these promises of God are real, we are receiving what He promised. It will be our country, not just living like an alien in a land, but living in our own country as citizens. And these things become real for us on this side of the cross when we trust Jesus and we’re transferred out of the domain of darkness into the kingdom of His beloved Son. Even if we’re living now, in 2020, and who knows when Jesus will return to take us to Himself, but whenever that is, those things that we will physically inherit then are just as real, just as certain, and just as much ours now as they will be then, and we know that.
Nikki: That’s the conviction of things not seen. [Laughter.]
Colleen: [Laughter.] Yes. And indeed, it says, “If they had been thinking of the country from which they went out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, a heavenly one.” I don’t know about you, Nikki, but when I read that, it made me think, they knew that God was promising them something that even if they didn’t get it, like Abraham leaving Ur and going to a land he didn’t know, in which he always lived as an alien, he still knew that God had promised him that as an inheritance for his descendants, and he knew that there was a country even beyond that that was a heavenly one. And it’s essentially saying, once he knew that these things were real, he couldn’t go back. It made me think of leaving Adventism. You know, once I saw the truth of the gospel, once I understood what Jesus had actually done, once I saw that the New Covenant rendered the old one obsolete and that Jesus was all I needed, I couldn’t go back.
Nikki: Uh-uh.
Colleen: Even though I lost a lot, even though I missed people, even though I was afraid of what I would leave behind, there was no going back. I knew I had to walk forward and follow Jesus.
Nikki: It makes me think of when Jesus was teaching and all of those disciples left Him, and He turned to His disciples, and He said, “Are you going to leave me too?” And they said, “Where else can we go? You have the words of eternal life.” There really is a point where you know, and you can’t go back.
Colleen: There’s such a remarkable sentence at the end of verse 16, “Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them.” He’s not ashamed of us when we have faith in Him, because He gives us that faith, and He gives us the ability to trust Him and to be submitted to Him because our Savior, Jesus, came submitted, as it said in chapter 10, a submitted Savior who was given a body to die for the sins of the world. When we trust Him, the Lord gives us a submitted heart, and He’s not ashamed of us. He calls Himself our God.
Nikki: It’s just overwhelming to me that He’s not ashamed to be called their God, but He’s the one who gave them that faith. It’s just an overwhelming thing. We’re absolutely blessed. He does it all.
Colleen: It’s true. And He claims us. Well, we’re going to end our discussion of Hebrews 11 this week with this verse. And next week we’re going to pick it up again at verse 17 and go on. But if you haven’t experienced that faith, that what God has said is true, that He sent His son, that He became sin for us so we might become the righteousness of God in Him, if you haven’t experienced kneeling at the foot of His cross and casting yourself on His mercy, admitting that you need a Savior, we just urge you to do that. Contemplate what it means that God is not ashamed to be called our God when we trust Him and believe that what He says is absolutely true, eternally real, not a maybe, not an if, not changed by human whim, but what He says is, and that faith determines our eternal future. So if you have comments or questions, please write to us at formeradventist@gmail.com. You can go to proclamationmagazine.com and subscribe to the magazine, subscribe to our weekly email, and don’t forget to like us on Facebook and Instagram, and wherever you listen to podcasts, please leave a review and rate our program. Thank you so much for being with us through yet another segment of the Book of Hebrews.
Nikki: Bye for now.
- Inspecting Adventism’s Beliefs—God the Holy Spirit | 114 - October 17, 2022
- Inspecting Adventism’s Beliefs—Unity in the Body of Christ | 113 - October 17, 2022
- Inspecting Adventism’s Beliefs—The Remnant and Its Mission | 112 - September 7, 2022