By Faith Abraham

The life of faith

Hebrews 11:8–19 NIV

By faith 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. By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God. And by faith even Sarah, who was past childbearing age, was enabled to bear children because she considered him faithful who had made the promise. And so from this one man, and he as good as dead, came descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sand on the seashore. All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. 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. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them. By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had embraced 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 even raise the dead, and so in a manner of speaking he did receive Isaac back from death.

As we continue to look at these heroes of faith in Hebrews chapter 11, we must always keep in mind the Jewish Christians, to whom the letter was written. They were a group of people, brought up from early childhood, with an understanding of the Old Testament, the Law, and the writings of the prophets, that was taught to them in their synagogues by their leaders, the scribes and pharisees. Now that they were Christians and had accepted that Jesus was indeed the Messiah that they had been waiting for, there was now a real need for them to understand that salvation was a matter of faith and not of law. Salvation was a matter of grace and trust, not a matter of effort and works.

That is why the writer has taken them back to all those people in their history who meant so much to them, that by examining their lives we discover that salvation by faith has always been the only way. By seeing the role of faith in their lives they might be encouraged to persevere through their current trials and not turn back to their former ways.

Abraham was such an important figure in their history that the writer devoted a large section of this chapter to him. We have seen that at God’s call, Abraham had obeyed, and left his old life and everything that he was familiar with to set out for a land that God would show him.

Gen 12:1 The Lord had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.

Abraham’s first act of faith was to acknowledge that God was calling him, to respond to the call, and to obey the call by leaving.

Faith to live in the land as a stranger and foreigner

9 By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise.

Before I look at Abraham’s faith to live in the land as a sojourner, I need to remind us that Abraham was flesh and blood, with all the weaknesses that go along with that. Yes, he believeed in God. Yes, he had received God’s promises, but there were times when he had doubts, times, when he questioned in his own mind those promises.

Do you remember that time when there was a famine and he had to go to Egypt for a while? He was afraid that they would kill him and he persuaded Sarah to say that she was his sister. Where was his faith then? You can find that episode in Genesis 12: 10-17

There was a similar occasion, when he stayed in Gerar, where the king was Abimelek. Where was his faith then?That’s in Genesis chapter 20

And you remember, of course, when Sarai offered her slave Hagar to Abraham, who agreed and then Ishmael was born. Where was his faith then?. You can find that episode in Genesis 16.

All these things happened long before Isaac was born.

Those are stories to look into at another time, but if you look at the account of Abraham’s faith in Hebrews 11, you will find no mention of his lack of faith. There is a principle here that holds true for all who come to God in faith and as it was true for Abraham, so it is true today. There are, no doubt, many occasions in our lives, when in our impatience to wait for God, we take this or that course of action, believing that it is the will of God. In the case of Abraham and his relationship with Hagar, there were consequences that are still felt to this day. Yet merciful God forgave him and continued to bless him.

Is 43:25 “I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions, for my own sake, and remembers your sins no more.

Heb 10:16 “This is the covenant I will make with them after that time, says the Lord. I will put my laws in their hearts, and I will write them on their minds.” 

Heb 10:17 Then he adds: “Their sins and lawless acts “ I will remember no more.” o

Hebrews 11:9 NIV

By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise.

Like a stranger in a foreign country

Here’s what we read in Genesis 13 14 The Lord said to Abram after Lot had parted from him, “Look around from where you are, to the north and south, to the east and west. 15 All the land that you see I will give to you and your offspring forever. 16 I will make your offspring like the dust of the earth, so that if anyone could count the dust, then your offspring could be counted. 17 Go, walk through the length and breadth of the land, for I am giving it to you.”

Note that verse 15 says “I will give to you and your offspring forever.”

To understand more of this we need to go to Genesis chapter 15

Genesis 15:7–8 NIV

He also said to him, “I am the Lord, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to take possession of it.” But Abram said, “Sovereign Lord, how can I know that I will gain possession of it?”

What follows seems like a strange ritual. God commanded Abram to kill a heifer, a goat, and a ram, cut their carcasses in two, and lay each half opposite the other. Then God took an oath by passing between the divided carcasses, thereby stating symbolically, “May I be slain like these animals if I do not keep my oath” (Genesis 15:9–18)

Normally, both parties to a treaty entered into in this way would walk between the two halves of the carcas. But in this case Abraham was in a deep sleep and God alone passed between the pieces. Abraham had no active part. This covenant was all from God, who told Abraham:

Gen 15:12-21

12 As the sun was setting, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and a thick and dreadful darkness came over him. 13 Then the Lord said to him, “Know for certain that for four hundred years your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own and that they will be enslaved and mistreated there. 14 But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions. 15 You, however, will go to your ancestors in peace and be buried at a good old age. 16 In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure.”

17 When the sun had set and darkness had fallen, a smoking firepot with a blazing torch appeared and passed between the pieces. 18 On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram and said, “To your descendants I give this land, from the Wadi of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates—19 the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, 20 Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites, 21 Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites and Jebusites.”

We find Abraham living in a land that was his, but not yet, among a people who were not his people. He dwelled in tents and did not construct a permanent home in the land. He had no property except one small plot of land that he purchased from the Hittites for the full current market value: the field near Mamre with a cave in it where he could bury Sarah and have as a burial site. He had been living in that fashion for sixty two years and he, too, would later be buried alongside Sarah, after having lived one hundred and seventy five years.

Abraham was living as a stranger in a land, which at that time belonged to the Canaanites, a land where there were frequent battles among the warring tribes and fortified cities. Don’t forget that Abraham was a rich man, who had many flocks and servants and to live in tents would not seem to be very safe, and to do so for many years would seem foolish.

Genesis 15:1 NIV

After this, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision: “Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your very great reward.”

Psalm 105:12–15 NIV

When they were but few in number, few indeed, and strangers in it, they wandered from nation to nation, from one kingdom to another. He allowed no one to oppress them; for their sake he rebuked kings: “Do not touch my anointed ones; do my prophets no harm.”

There are clear parallels here for Christians today. Peter reminds us

1 Peter 1:17 NIV

Since you call on a Father who judges each person’s work impartially, live out your time as foreigners here in reverent fear.

Ephesians 2:12–13 NIV

remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

Ephesians 2:19–20 NIV

Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone.

This was a testing of Abraham’s faith, to live as a stranger in a land that was promised to him as an inheritance, but that neither he, nor his son Isaac, who was not yet born, nor his grandson Jacob, nor his great grandchildren would see in their lifetime. God’s promise enabled Abraham to look beyond the span of his natural life to a resurrection experience when he would possess the land that God had promised to him and his descendants.

Hebrews 11:10 NIV

For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God.

While he was in the land of Canaan, Abraham lived in tents, a dwelling place that had no foundation and could be swept away at any moment, but his faith was in God, whose city was in direct contrast to any temporary structure or building or anything that could be erected by any man.

Was this city, whose architect and builder is God, that Abraham looked forward to, a picture of Heaven? Or was Abraham looking forward to resurrection in a physical city under the perfect rule and governance of God?

I said at the beginning that we need to remind ourselves that Hebrews was written by a Jewish writer to Jewish Christians, steeped in Jewish scripture. How would they have received this teaching? My guess is that they would see it as a physical city, ruled by the Messiah for whom they had been waiting so long.

Do you remember the Land promise of God to Abraham? If you missed it here it is again:

Genesis 15:18–19 (NIV)

On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram and said, “To your descendants I give this land, from the Wadi of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates—

the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites,

Now, we know that most of that land is currently a vast tract of desert. If God promised all that land to Abraham and his descendants, and we know that God is faithful, then I need to ask the question: How is God going to fulfil that promise that he made to Abraham and he made it also to Isaac (Genesis 26:2-5

Genesis 26:2–5 NIV

The Lord appeared to Isaac and said, “Do not go down to Egypt; live in the land where I tell you to live. Stay in this land for a while, and I will be with you and will bless you. For to you and your descendants I will give all these lands and will confirm the oath I swore to your father Abraham. I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and will give them all these lands, and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, because Abraham obeyed me and did everything I required of him, keeping my commands, my decrees and my instructions.”

and toJacob? (Genesis 28:13-15 )

13 There above it stood the Lord, and he said: “I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying. 14 Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring. p 15 I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.

Can you see God’s promise there: “I will give you the land on which you are lying.”

We know that when the Israelites came from Egypt, and even today they occupied just a tiny fraction of that. And, in fact, by the time we get to Moses and the return of the Israelites from Egypt, the promised land seems to have been all that area that Moses was allowed to see from Mount Nebo, just before he died:

Deuteronomy 32:49 NIV

“Go up into the Abarim Range to Mount Nebo in Moab, across from Jericho, and view Canaan, the land I am giving the Israelites as their own possession.

Most commentators take the view that the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God, is a picture of heaven, with all the glorious features that heaven encompasses. William Barclay, for example, says that Abraham’s faith was a faith that was looking beyond this world and he goes on to justify that by quoting legends from the books of Baruch and Esdras which are not in the canon of the Bible.

Albert Barnes says this:

This passage seems to me to prove that Abraham had an expectation of future happiness after death. There is not the slightest evidence that he supposed there would be a magnificent and glorious capital where the Messiah would personally reign, and where the righteous dead, raised from their graves, would dwell in the second advent of the Redeemer. All that the passage fairly implies is, that while Abraham, expected the possession of the promised land for his posterity, yet his faith looked beyond this for a permanent home in a future world.

Donald Guthrie writes:

The writer thinks in spiritual terms of the city which God is building. We may compare this idea with the vision of the new Jerusalem which is described in Revelation 21 and 22, where again the spiritual aspects are without question the most important

Andrew Murray writes:

He saw the unseen; in hope he lived in the future. He had his heart as little in Canaan as in Haran; it was in heaven; it was with God

Another said that Abraham was going to heaven, and he knew it. Some see it all in terms of spiritual realities, where material realities disappear.

Of course, as verse 16 says, Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Did Abraham and Isaac and Jacob view it in a merely spiritual sense or did their eye of faith point them to a bodily resurrection and a new life in a future city, designed and built by God? 12:22 Gives this city its name:

22 But you have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem. You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly,

By the way the writer to the Hebrews, in chapter 12, contrasts Mount Zion, the mountain of Joy, with Mount Sinai, the mountain of fear. But that’s for another day.

Why was it important to Abraham to have a burial plot, the only piece of land that he possessed, in the land of Canaan? It was important, too, to Isaac and Jacob. In genesis 49, when Jacob was about to die, we read this:

29 Then he gave them these instructions: “I am about to be gathered to my people. Bury me with my fathers in the cave in the field of Ephron the Hittite, 30 the cave in the field of Machpelah, near Mamre in Canaan, which Abraham bought along with the field as a burial place from Ephron the Hittite. 31 There Abraham and his wife Sarah were buried, there Isaac and his wife Rebekah were buried, and there I buried Leah. 32 The field and the cave in it were bought from the Hittites. ”

33 When Jacob had finished giving instructions to his sons, he drew his feet up into the bed, breathed his last and was gathered to his people.

And in Chapter 50 Joseph reminded his brothers of the land promise that God had made, and instructed that his bones be carried out of Egypt and taken back to that land. Genesis 50: 24-25

24 Then Joseph said to his brothers, “I am about to die. But God will surely come to your aid and take you up out of this land to the land he promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.” 25 And Joseph made the Israelites swear an oath and said, “God will surely come to your aid, and then you must carry my bones up from this place.”

Is it enough to say that God’s promise of land to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob ,and to all his descendants who have faith, will be fulfilled in a spiritual heaven? Were they looking forward to a spiritual resurrection or a physical, bodily resurrection? Can bones be raised to life?

The Prophet Ezekiel speaks of resurrection and restoration. We acknowledge, of course that he was a prophet in exile, along with his people, and his words may be applied to the return from Babylon, where they were captive. But his words are for a yet future time when God will resurrect his own and bring them to a restored land, where they will live in safety.

Chapter 37 Gives us that vivid picture of the valley of dry bones, where he prophesied and they came to life and stood up

The New International Version Chapter 37

11 Then he said to me: “Son of man, these bones are the people of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone; we are cut off.’ 12 Therefore prophesy and say to them: ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says: My people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them; I will bring you back to the land of Israel. 13 Then you, my people, will know that I am the LORD, when I open your graves and bring you up from them. 14 I will put my Spirit in you and you will live, and I will settle you in your own land. Then you will know that I the LORD have spoken, and I have done it, declares the LORD.’ ”

Further down, we read this:

The New International Version Chapter 37

24 “ ‘My servant David will be king over them, and they will all have one shepherd. They will follow my laws and be careful to keep my decrees. 25 They will live in the land I gave to my servant Jacob, the land where your ancestors lived. They and their children and their children’s children will live there forever, and David my servant will be their prince forever. 26 I will make a covenant of peace with them; it will be an everlasting covenant. I will establish them and increase their numbers, and I will put my sanctuary among them forever. 27 My dwelling place will be with them; I will be their God, and they will be my people. 28 Then the nations will know that I the LORD make Israel holy, when my sanctuary is among them forever.’ ”

As for the land, the prophet says this:

The New International Version Chapter 36

8 “ ‘But you, mountains of Israel, will produce branches and fruit for my people Israel, for they will soon come home. 9 I am concerned for you and will look on you with favor; you will be plowed and sown, 10 and I will cause many people to live on you—yes, all of Israel. The towns will be inhabited and the ruins rebuilt. 11 I will increase the number of people and animals living on you, and they will be fruitful and become numerous. I will settle people on you as in the past and will make you prosper more than before. Then you will know that I am the LORD. 12 I will cause people, my people Israel, to live on you. They will possess you, and you will be their inheritance; you will never again deprive them of their children.

Whatever view you have of the city that Abraham was looking forward to, whether physical under the heavenly rule of God, or spiritual only as a heavenly city, Abraham believed in the resurrection of the body and his faith, which grew stronger as he walked with God from the age of seventy five, was demonstrated so poignantly when he offered up Isaac on Mount Moriah.

We will have to talk about that next time.