Hebrews 11:17-31

Hebrews 11:17-31

In the incredible and wonderful description of the Hall of Fame of Faith, we must be careful not to miss the forest for the trees. Each description of great faith is worthy of study, but their uniting theme, as with the whole book of Hebrews, is a superiority of Christ to all else. In the verses before us, we see a summation of the beginning of the nation of Israel from the great Abraham to the entry into the Promised Land. Covering hundreds of years of history and only barely touching on the lives mentioned, the author points out the real source of the life of Israel. The real source of the life of Israel, as God's chosen people, wasn't the rituals of the temple, the work of angels, the life of Moses, or the giving of the law, but it was faith.

The appeal of Judaism to draw Hebrew Christians back was a mistaken appeal because the foundation of the ancients was faith, and that faith is now expressed in Christ. A Jew was never less Jewish than when they failed to have faith in Jesus as the Messiah. A Jew was most consistent with the heroes and the patriarchs of old when they placed their faith in Jesus. In the novel In His Steps, we often hear the question, “What would Jesus do?” The writer of Hebrews is almost subliminally asking that question and another form of “What would Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and the patriarchs do?" The question is answered: they would have faith in God in the person of Jesus.

We need for a moment to take a glance at one specific incident. All those magnificent moments of faith deserve detailed study; however, the most we can do now is take a quick glance at the greatest act of faith in the Old Testament: the near sacrifice of Isaac. The original Jewish readers would have studied this event and would have had a depth of knowledge far beyond what we typically have. What they would have seen in this event was a vivid picture of the death of Jesus on the cross. The most important and defining moment in the life of the father of the Jewish nation was a picture, an acted prophecy, of the sacrifice of Jesus. What would it mean to be a true descendant of Abraham was bound up in the death and the resurrection of Jesus!

“Grant me Lord a faith so deep and committed that I will never fear man nor circumstances. AMEN”