You will have read many books and heard
many addresses on the classic Hebrews eleven: "The
heroes of faith"; "The Roll-call of the
Faithful"; and it is doubtful whether this chapter
has ever been dealt with, in whole or in parts, without examples
of and encouragement to faith being the point focused
upon. And rightly so. But not often do we hear or read
anything on it which makes the whole context of the
letter the object. The chapter is usually taken in
itself, with the first words of what follows often added.
What we desire to indicate here is that
chapter 11 is really the Apostle's gathering up of his
whole theme as he begins to round off his letter. He has
presented Christ "crowned with glory and
honour". God's Son in uniqueness of sonship; and
then he has shown the Divine thought of securing and
bringing to glory many sons, not sharing that uniqueness,
but being made partakers of His incarnation and through
"adoption," i.e., "child placing". He
has shown that everything of God in this dispensation is
of a spiritual and heavenly nature, and not temporal and
earthly. He has urged that spiritual fullness in Christ
is the goal of the believer's calling, and that it is
terribly possible to fail of it, with grievous
consequences.
Now, as to all this, and its values for
God's people, he shows, by triumphant examples, that
faith is the link between calling and destiny, between
Divine thought and its realization.
The Supreme Feature Of The Life Of
Faith
is that the people of God are tested by
their position. There is no more testing position than
that to which believers are called in this dispensation.
God has not promised us anything on this earth in this
dispensation which will be our vindication before men,
the literal and material justification of our abandonment
of all for Him. The nearer we get to the Divine thought
the further away do we get from what can be "written
up," pointed to, and advertized as the result of our
work. Such things belong to the elementary stages of
life, and God never prolongs them. His most abiding and
solid work is underground where the sensation hunter
cannot get at it, and where the publicity department will
be hard put to it. If faith is really faith, and
if the end times are to be more testing as to faith than
any others (and the Scriptures say emphatically that it
will be so) then there will be much less in the
consummation of things to relieve faith by sight than at
other times. But this principle holds good at all times when
God is after something more than the superficial. The
people mentioned in our chapter were all tested by their
position. This is most clearly seen in Abraham and in
Israel with Moses. God was there and then acting on the
line of material responses to faith, but they were
severely tested by the position in which they were placed
by God's act.
This is a spiritual age, and it is that
fact which constitutes the test which very few Christians
are prepared to accept. If anything becomes big, or if it
can be made so: if names of world fame and titles of
worldly importance sponsor it, or if they can be
persuaded to do so: how much is made of it all! How very
gratified is that flesh when things appear to be going
well! Yes, yes, we are still so much of this earth, and
we have failed to see how very small the biggest thing
here is when seen from even ten thousand feet up, to say
nothing of God's throne and His spiritual measure.
What our writer is really saying is that
real measure is that of faith, because the realm into
which we are now called is one in which there is nothing
apart from faith. The first stage is now of faith, and so
is every subsequent increase. The whole dispensation is
an immense advance upward in Divine thought, and sets the
background for something much more inward than ever
before. In the previous dispensations everything was
outward and tangible - sacrifices, altars, meeting
places, priests, vestments, feasts, rewards, etc.; but in
this age all these things are gathered into the
all-inclusive "In Christ," and are essentially
spiritual aspects of the One Heavenly Man; to be known,
enjoyed, and comprehended only by faith. The long
generations of sentient gratification in religious things
were in the very blood of these Hebrews, and they craved
for the seen, the felt, the heard, the physical and
emotional system of the past. Thus, all that is said from
the beginning of the epistle is carried up to the most
spiritual of all attributes - faith, which worketh by
love.
The encumbering weights impeding the
running in the race of chapter 12:1 are the legal aspects
of external Law. The "sin which doth so easily
beset" is doubt or unbelief, 'unfaith'; for
"whatsoever is not of faith is sin".
Thus sin, in this letter, is resolved into
a matter, not of morals, but of how much we reverse the
nature of the dispensation by putting temporal elements
and ideas in the place of spiritual. It may never have
occurred to many that ritual, vestments, and
ecclesiastical regalia and forms may be sin in this
respect, that they undermine, supplant, or weaken the
truly spiritual, and, rather than help faith, only act as
crutches which keep people from having "their senses
(spiritual faculties) exercised" (Heb. 5:14).
This leads on in the unbroken sequence of
thought to what is - in our unfortunate, mechanical
divisions of chapters - in chapter 12. Here the
"fathers of our flesh," and the "Father of
spirits" are compared. Childtraining
("chastening") unto "son receiving"
(literally, "placing as sons") has to do with
our spirits; not firstly with our bodies, or our souls.
The spirit is the very new man himself with which God is
linked by new birth. All God's paternal attentions are
taken up with this "inner man of the heart".
Spirit cannot really be fed with temporal things. The
soul may be greatly stimulated by blessings in the
temporal realm, but it is here that one of the most vital
and far-reaching distinctions is made by the Word of God,
and one most grievously overlooked by the vast majority
of Christians; and especially is it the point of default
by the majority of Christian leaders. It is thought that
if there is much soul stimulation along the lines of
emotion, feeling, and 'zeal' or enthusiasm: reason,
argument, information to the mind: and action, work,
drive, volition: this is essentially the mark of
spiritual life. In the New Testament it is the other way
round; there was a deep inward work of the Holy Spirit in
those days, before the effects - the instruction or
teaching, the zeal, and the works. To put the cart before
the horse in this matter may be just Satan's great
illusion by which he brings about the most deadly
reactions, so that the afterward is more hopeless than
before. It may be well at this point to give a reminder
that Satan's point of the conquest of man was man's soul
- reason, argument: desire, feeling: volition, choice,
action. Through and by his soul man capitulated to a
course of unbelief, which severed his spirit from
fellowship with God. (God is Spirit, not soul. When God
is referred to as having soul, it is only speaking
after the manner of men, not actually the truth about
God.) The undoing or destroying of the works of the devil
in man and in a new race will be by rebirth of man's
spirit in union with God by the Holy Spirit, and by that
being "joined to the Lord, one spirit" to make
for the full growth of a spiritual man (Heb. 5:14, 6:1;
R.V.) thus bringing the soul into captivity with its
moods, variations, and its inherent weakness toward
doubt. The "dominion" of chapter 2 is now
reserved unto spiritual people, and this is the heart of
the whole Letter to the Hebrews with its particular
connection, as it is the heart of the whole New Testament
in its manifold application.
The "placing as sons,"
which is the issue of "child-training" is
spiritual "full-growth". Here is the link
between chapters 11 and 12. It was not only what those
heroes of faith did through faith, but what they attained
unto. There was a Divine "perfection" as the
goal of fellowship with God. The word "perfect"
(Greek, "complete") is used eight times in this
letter.
"To make the Captain of their
salvation perfect" (2:10).
"Having been made perfect, He became... the Author
of eternal salvation" (5:9).
"The law made nothing perfect" (7:19), etc.,
and thus, having shown the object of God, and
incidentally of this letter, the writer brings us to two
consummate statements:
a. "Apart from us they should not be
made perfect" (11:40).
b. "Ye are come... to the spirits of just men made
perfect" (12:23).
We leave the second till later, only noting again where
completeness lies.
So, with all their faith and its manifold
and wonderful expression two things issued:
a. They "received not the
promise," but "died (still) in faith".
They awaited completion or completeness; the full fruit
of their faith had yet to ripen and be gathered.
b. "The spirits of (these) just men made
perfect." "Apart from us they should not be
made perfect" (made complete).
Note: This is not numerical completeness;
that we were necessary to be added to them. That might be
true, but it is not what is meant here. It is their own
completeness.
Something then has happened between their
dying and our time. Yes; their faith was, in its essence,
prospective. It looked on. See statements as to this in
the record of chapter 11, etc. What did it look on to?
Well, with greater or lesser clearness and definiteness
it linked with the Christ, their Vindicator, their
Redeemer, their Prince. This link of faith - not
abstract faith, but its Divine Object - made it
justifying faith; "it was accounted unto (them) for
righteousness." Hence they are "just," or
justified men, and their faith carried them over
centuries to the Justifier, to our day; and in the
"perfect" - finished, full and final - work and
speech of God in Christ (Heb. 1:2) they, with us who have
faith, are made complete, and their spirits are in the
rest of faith. This is all so much of a piece with the
whole letter that we are considering, as will be seen.
So "Faith is the assurance
(confidence, giving substance to) of things hoped for, a
conviction of things not seen." Someone has
translated it "the title deeds" of things hoped
for. Then the inheritance is now - at length - in
possession.
In our next chapter we shall have
something more to say on this matter, drawing upon
chapter 11, as we move to the second part of chapter 12.