Jesus: Faith Makes Perfect (Hebrews 11)
by tim on Nov.17, 2008, under Sermon
(The following message was preached at St. John’s on the 12/10/08.)
Hebrews 11 is one of the best-loved and most-hated portions of Scripture. Best-loved because we are presented with a catalogue of the heroes of the faith, men and women who have gone before us and lived a life commendable and commended for its faithfulness. Most-hated because, by comparison, we cannot help but feel a little shabby. Speaking for myself, I know that my life does not always reflect my faith. I say I believe in Jesus, but what does that faith amount to? How would my life be different without it? Today we shall attempt to address these questions and more.
One of the great dangers of studying such a well-known passage is that we risk losing sight of its context. Consider, for example, how we read 1 Corinthians 13, Paul’s magnificent hymn about love. I have yet to attend a wedding where this text was placed in its proper context – a rebuke to a church intent on showing off their own gifts, rather than using them for each other’s benefit. It is when we understand the larger picture that we feel the sting of the Apostle’s words: ‘If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal’ (1 Cor. 13:1). Similarly, sometimes, at a low point in my relationship with God, I have turned to Hebrews chapter 11 looking for inspiration. Only rarely have I stopped to wonder why the author turns to the subject of faith at this point in his epistle. So that is where we shall start today, with context.
This discussion of faith does not just spring out of nowhere, although our English translations do their level best to conceal this from us. For the Greek word translated here as ‘faith’ has been used both positively and negatively throughout the letter to this point. Positively, the author has written of trust,1 faithfulness,2 faith,3 belief,4 confidence;5 and negatively of unbelief6 and disobedience7 – all of which derive from the same Greek word. No wonder he feels the need to clarify exactly what he means by it!
Most recently, at the end of chapter 10, he has quoted from the prophet Habakkuk, saying:
“He who is coming will come and will not delay. But my righteous one will live by faith. And if he shrinks back, I will not be pleased with him.” (10:37-8; cf. Hab. 2:3, 4)
This in itself is quoted in support of his strong call for perseverance: ‘Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful’ (10:23). So the flow of thought for the entire letter to this point is something like this: Jesus is in every way superior to the teachers and trappings of the Old Covenant,8 for he is the mediator and High Priest9 of the New Covenant10 which has superseded the Old; you have accepted him as your prophet, high priest and sacrifice so hold on to him rather than attempting to return to that which is obsolete;11 indeed there is now no sacrifice for sin other than Jesus,12 and to reject him is to face judgment;13 so you need to persevere with Jesus in order to receive that which he has promised.14 For, he says,
“He who is coming will come and will not delay. But my righteous one will live by faith. And if he shrinks back, I will not be pleased with him.” (10:37-8)
Hebrews 11 follows directly from this and is, in fact, the author’s exposition and interpretation of that passage from Habakkuk: he shows us what it means to ‘live by faith'; and he warns us against shrinking back. This will be our roadmap as we navigate Hebrews 11.
Live by faith!
As already mentioned, the Apostle has used the word ‘faith’ many times in his letter, and done so in many different contexts. Yet even now, he is not terribly concerned with giving us a definition of what faith is; his interest is in showing us what faith does. Thus we get the briefest of definitions – ‘faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see’ – before moving on into examples of what it means to live by (or according to) faith.
There are 9 individuals in this chapter who are specifically commended for their faith. Each of them deserves a sermon of their own; you will be pleased to hear, however, that it is not my intention to offer you 9 mini-sermons today! Instead I shall do my best to draw out some of the things the author is teaching us about what living by faith looks like.
1) Faith trusts God’s word… and obeys his commands!
Faith is our response to what God says. Sometimes this means proclaiming God’s truths even when they are unpopular, unacceptable or incomprehensible to our society: ‘By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible’ (11:3). It prompts us to obey God’s instruction: ‘Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going’ (11:8). In Noah’s case, both of these were true, for he was surely ridiculed for his actions yet by faith he obeyed God anyway.
We are told that Abraham left his home ‘even though he did not know where he was going’ (11:8). Sometimes God’s word is a lantern that lights only one or two steps in front of us; trusting God’s word means stepping out along the path you can see and relying on God for the rest. Abel did not have as full a picture of God as Abraham did, yet Abel recognised God as worthy of honour and worship and acted accordingly. Similarly Abraham did not have the law as it was given to Moses, but he did trust in what he had received from God.
There is a gentle rebuke here for the recipients of this epistle. They were possessed of a much greater revelation of God than Abel, Abraham or Moses. Yet whilst they had started out strong15 they were now drifting back in to the rituals and practices of Judaism. What should have encouraged them to go on was instead causing them to drift away. They had heard but not yet ingested the ‘elementary truths of God’s word’ (5:12) – they were refusing milk let alone dining on solid food.16 Perhaps they were disillusioned because they could not see how God could possibly be in control when they were enduring ‘great suffering’ (10:32), ‘insult and persecution’ (10:33) ‘prison’ and confiscation of property (10:34). ‘Faith,’ the Apostle says in response, ‘is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see’ (11:1).
This rebuke is also for us. Does God’s word lead to a response in your life? Are you worried because you do not understand God’s entire plan for your life? Don’t be, for in this you are like Abraham. Mark Twain once said, ‘It ain’t the parts of the Bible that I can’t understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand.’ We must act in obedience to the parts of God’s word that we do understand, then trust in him to make the rest clear when the time is right.
2) Faith trusts more in God than in God’s gifts
By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had received the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son, even though God had said to him, “It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.” Abraham reasoned that God could raise the dead, and figuratively speaking, he did receive Isaac back from death. (11:17-19)
Abraham had been promised that he would become the father of many nations17 and that it would be through Isaac that this would come about.18 Yet when God asked him to give up his son, he obeyed. We are told that this is because he ‘reasoned that God could raise the dead’. This is a strong contrast to the story told in Genesis 17, where he had tried to convince God to bless Ishmael as it was clear to him that his wife Sarah would never conceive. Evidently he had learned his lesson about trying to control the way God fulfilled his promises.
Perhaps you, too, have some vision of the way your life is ‘supposed’ to pan out. Maybe God has given you a child or a spouse, a job, a house or something else in response to prayer. What would you do if he called you to give that person or possession up for his sake, in the cause of the gospel? Could you do it? Would you? This requires great faith, but be assured that the one who asks it of you is forever faithful.
3) Faith looks forward, not back
Hope is an intrinsic part of faith, and hope by its very nature looks forward rather than backward. We are told that, whilst these heroes of faith ‘did not receive the things promised’ nevertheless ‘they saw them and welcomed them from a distance’ (11:13). For them, the fact that God had said it was sufficient for them to believe it. Furthermore they were not content to settle for less than what God promised; that is where their eyes were focused. ‘If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country — a heavenly one’ (11:15-16).
Are your eyes fixed on the promises of God? Are you ‘longing for a better country’ or are you enamoured of the country you are in… or even the one you have been called out of? It’s true, isn’t it, that we sometimes become comfortable in our routine to the point where change seems too much like hard work, and so we potentially miss out on God’s blessings. Worse still is when we deliberately turn our back on God and return to the situation we were in before he called us. Please don’t settle for either of these – you can’t afford it, and we as a church can’t afford it. You need to press on and ‘persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised’ (10:36).
Don’t shrink back!
The Apostle is desperate to impress upon us this need to persevere. This is evident from the fact that he bookends this chapter with encouragement to press on and not to hold back: he starts by saying, ‘we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who believe and are saved’ (10:39); and he concludes, ‘therefore… let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us’ (12:1).
As we have heard many times in this series, this letter was probably written to Jewish Christians. As persecution arose and intensified against them, however, the prospect of simply merging back into mainstream Judaism (which was protected by Roman law) rather than holding on to their Christian faith (which, increasingly, was not) would have become increasingly attractive. The author’s method of persuasion throughout the letter to the Hebrews has been to show how much superior Jesus is to anything offered by Old Covenant Judaism: he is superior to prophets19 (including the greatly revered prophet Moses20 ) and angels;21 he represents a greater salvation,22 for he is a greater high priest23 who serves in a greater tabernacle24 as mediator of a New and better Covenant,25 offering a greater sacrifice for sins.26 His consistent argument has been that the old ‘is only a shadow of the good things that are coming – not the realities themselves’ (10:1) and that ‘what is obsolete and aging will soon disappear’ (8:13).
True to form, the Apostle continues this theme. He has presented the heroes of the Jewish faith. ‘These were all commended for their faith,’ he writes, ‘yet none of them received what had been promised’ (11:39). This is not to say that they did not receive any part of what was promised, for this would clearly be untrue. For Abraham had a son according to promise and he entered the land that was promised (11:11); similarly Noah, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses and Joshua all receive in part according to God’s promises. But they all died before seeing God’s promises completely fulfilled. Their faith was in this sense imperfect. The reason for this is that ‘God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect’ (11:40).
Faith made perfect
Before we go any further we need to understand this word ‘perfect’. The idea is of completion and wholeness, a goal or objective achieved. (It may please you to know that this sermon is nearly ‘perfect’ – i.e. I am nearly done!) Thus Jesus shared in our humanity in order to be made perfect through suffering (2:10) and ‘once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him’ (5:9); the sacrifices made under the old covenant were not able to ‘make perfect those who draw near to worship’ (10:1) but Jesus is able ‘because by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy’ (10:14).
Perfection is when the shadow becomes the reality, the dream takes on flesh, and the unseen heavenly reality becomes the seen earthly reality. It comes as no surprise then that the author is not shy about relating the ‘something better’ that God had planned (11:40):
‘Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.’ (12:1-3)
The only faith that is perfect is the one that rests in Jesus, ‘the author and perfecter of our faith’ (12:2). And for more on that, you will need to join us again in 3 weeks time when we pick up with Hebrews 12…