Hebrews Chapter Eleven, Pilgrims

 

Hebrews 11:13 These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off were assured of them and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.

 

“These all,” compasses the panorama of the faithful from Abel to Abraham and Sarah thus far, for a total of 2184 years of human history from the inception of man to the death of Abraham at 175, using the Biblical chronology found in Genesis, NKJV.

The patriarchs until this point had not received the substance of the things promised, but, as the author relates, saw them afar off, that is, not yet come to pass. This pause in the march of the faithful serves again to define the nature of faith. It is the substance of things hoped for, and the evidence of things not seen, Hebrews 11:1. It is the substance by which the elders obtained the good testimony were are now examining.

 

What are the promises? The chief promise, given before Abel in the blissful paradise of Eden, was this, “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel,” Genesis 3:15. This prophecy continues through Abraham’s lineage, and Paul seizes on this, expounding that when God spoke to Abraham about his descendants, He had a view to a particular descendant, namely Christ, Galatians 3:16. In Genesis 12:7, 13:15, 24:7 for instance, the Hebrew word in the NKJV translated “descendants,” or the NIV and ESV rendered, “offspring,” is literally, “seed.” Perhaps Paul was also recalling the Genesis account, and the usage of the word. God warned Satan that His Seed would crush the serpent’s head. If there was any doubt that a plurality of people was in view verses an individual, the Holy Spirit clarifies by stating, “He (the Seed, singular) shall bruise your (Satan’s) head.” That was why, quoting Genesis, Paul wrote, “Scripture does not say, “and to seeds,” meaning many people, but, “and to your seed,” meaning one person, who is Christ,” again, Galatians 3:16, NIV. This is the promise Paul attests that God made to the fathers, which he refers to as glad tidings in Acts 13:32. Furthermore, in verse 33 he assured his Jewish audience that God fulfilled it, specifically in the person of Jesus Christ. Through Jesus the faithful would have their rest and the homeland they craved.

 

This was what our Lord meant when He told His Jewish audience, “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad,” John 8:56. The patriarchs were assured, which can also mean, “certain, confident, secure.” To wit, they trusted God, and what He had done for them in the course of their lives was evidence enough. Abel undoubtedly heard stories from Adam and Eve about walking with the Lord in the garden, and from what it sounds like, he could see Eden for himself, at least from afar since a cherubim guarded the way. Enoch was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied, so near was he to God’s presence. Noah found grace in God’s eyes and was divinely commanded (presumably by God directly) to build the ark. Noah, too, would have grown up with the stories passed down from Adam, Seth, etc. In fact, Henry Morris believed that eyewitnesses wrote Genesis, and their collective accounts and genealogies were passed down as the narrative was continued by those who outlived the prior generation. Were this actually the case, then Moses compiled and coordinated the Genesis account, but did not actually write it. While interesting, we will never know for certain on this side of life.

 

The promises to Abraham and the Jewish people were bound up in the greater promise God made to Adam and Eve when they sinned and mankind had fallen. When our first parents sided with Satan over obedience to the Lord, God declared that from the Seed of the woman would come one to undo what the serpent had done to man, with the implication of crushing the serpent’s head. Part of this purpose was removing Abraham from Ur of the Chaldees, separating him from his family and birth land, and bringing him to a place he did not know. Further, he separated Joseph from his family to prepare Israel for their time in Egypt. Then God separated the nation, keeping them as a unique people in Egypt, instead of integrating with the Canaanites and losing their ethnic individuality.

 

Separation is God’s intention for His people; the church, His ekklesia, is separated FROM the world and TO Jesus Christ. This emboldened Abraham to acknowledge that he was a stranger (unacquainted with the ways of the world) and a pilgrim (a temporary resident, a transient without a home) on the earth. So too for those who preceded him. Enoch walked with God, we are told; the idea is not one of idleness, but activity and motion. He was never comfortable in the world he found himself surrounded by, and as God’s interests and kingdom were always advancing, so too was Enoch until the day that he was not, for God took him. We will revisit this verse’s theme in Hebrews 11:39, God willing, when it once again provides a compassing statement of faith for the witnesses prior to the cross and the death of the Lord they longed for. “For assuredly, I say to you that many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it,” Matthew 13:17.