Hebrews Chapter Eleven, When Faith Manifests

 

Hebrews 11:28 By faith he kept the Passover and the sprinkling of blood, lest he who destroyed the firstborn should touch them. [29] By faith they passed through the Red Sea as by dry land, whereas the Egyptians, attempting to do so, were drowned.

 

Verse 28 recalls the final judgment on Egypt’s gods from Exodus chapter 12. “Against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment,” Exodus 12:12. The gods of Egypt’s pantheon were diverse. This final judgment might have been directed at Osiris, who was reverenced for, among other things, the afterlife, the dead, resurrection, and life.

The Passover was so named for a literal event: “Now the blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you; and the plague shall not be on you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt,” Exodus 12:13. The blood in question was a lamb’s blood, which was to be painted on the doorposts and lintel, where the sacrificed lamb was eaten, Exodus 12:7, 8. The blood was a visible manifestation of an individual’s faith in God, and an explicit trust that what He said was true. If they believed, each Hebrew would obey; if they did not believe, they would not eat the lamb and use its blood on their doorposts. Those that believe would be separated from those that did not in a most dramatic—and final—way.

 

God told Moses, “For the Lord will pass through to strike the Egyptians; and when He sees the blood on the lintel and on the two doorposts, the Lord will pass over the door and will not allow the destroyer to come into your houses to strike you,” Exodus 12:23. Moses (and all the Jews) had a choice to make: to believe God’s testimony of what He was about to enact, or disbelieve it. Moses chose well; God spoke, and Moses knew the character of the Lord. What God purposes, that He will do. God permitted the Amorites to go their own way, sinking deeper and deeper into moral and spiritual depravity, until His purpose for Israel in Egypt was fulfilled. He did not permit Israel to enter Egypt and remain for four generations until He led them out; He purposed it and executed His will. Now God purposed to destroy the firstborn, and Israel was not exempt. This is worthy of noting. Israel, being Jewish, does not save you from God’s judgment. Every household needed to grapple with the immense truth God relayed through Moses: the firstborn of all Egypt, from the slave to Pharaoh himself, would perish. If they did not wish to suffer the bereavement this judgment entailed, they would obey in faith. Those who did witnessed the Lord’s fidelity; He preserves His genuine children and permits those who think they are His, but their actions betray them, to suffer the consequences of their foolish choices.

 

Furthermore, Israel, led by Moses, passed through the Red Sea by faith. In Exodus chapter 14 Israel departs Egypt, and Pharaoh, along with his servants, turned hostile toward the Jews, Exodus 14:5. Pursuing them to the Red Sea, God parts the sea so that Israel could pass dry-shod while a great cloud parted Pharaoh’s army from the fleeing Jews. Like the blood of the Passover, this act of faith was individual, and demonstrated the heart of every person passing through it; they trusted that what God began, He would complete. Pharaoh and his entourage, however, did not have any faith. Having hardened his heart beyond recovery, Pharaoh was further hardened by God, elected to use as a vessel of God’s wrath for his own willful obstinacy, Romans 9:22. We read earlier in Hebrews 11:6 that, “without faith it is impossible to please God.” Pharaoh did not follow Israel because he believed; he followed because he desperately wanted to avenge himself and his wounded pride upon God by killing God’s people.

 

The Red Sea, translated in the Hebrew as, “yam suph,” literally means “Sea of Reeds,” or possibly, “Sea at the End.” Apparently it is never contextually translated Red Sea anywhere else in the Old Testament. This term was imported when the Septuagint, or the LXX was translated into the Greek, around 200 BC. We read, “And God led the people round by the way of the wilderness, to the Red Sea,” Exodus 13:18, LXX. The Jewish Tanakh, however, more accurately states, ”So God led the people roundabout, by way of the wilderness at the Sea of Reeds.” The Septuagint’s translation was picked up by Jerome for the Latin Vulgate, and likewise imported into the 1610 King James Version. While the NASB, usually very literal, retains Red Sea, it does offer in a footnote that the actual translation is Sea of Reeds. While the debate rages within Christendom about where the actual parting of the sea took place, it may well be impossible to accurately determine. We do know two things, determined from this verse. #1: the people under Moses walked through the sea dry-shod, by faith in the God that delivered them. #2: Pharaoh’s army, lacking reverential faith in Yahweh, was drowned in the sea. The theme James had woven in his epistle about faith apart from works being dead is everywhere manifest in this chapter. An academic faith that invades the head but leaves the heart vacant is no better than that shared by demons, James 2:19. Such faith—which is simply head knowledge that we refuse to live—cannot save, but it is more than enough to severely condemn its possessor, Mark 4:25, Luke 8:18.