Hebrews Chapter Eleven, What Faith Avails

 

Hebrews 11:35 Women received their dead raised to life again. Others were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection. [36] Still others had trial of mockings and scourgings, yes, and of chains and imprisonment.

 

Verse 32 mentions Samuel and the prophets. Samuel’s rise to power in Israel denoted the end of the era of the Judges, Acts 13:20. Samuel was the prophet that first anointed Saul, and then David, his successor. Furthermore, from Samuel onward, the united voice of the prophets foretold of the Coming One, Acts 3:24.

Verse 35 opens with the reminder that, “women received their dead raised to life.” How? By faith. Bear in mind, this chapter was written to remind the Hebrew Christians of the power of faith in the living God, and what faith can both accomplish, and strengthen us to endure. These two verses will see a mixture of both.

 

One woman in particular, the widow in Zarephath, was suffering during the drought and famine that gripped northern Israel in the days of Ahab and Elijah, in 1 Kings chapter 17. The prophet, after being fed by her at his request, told her, “the bin of flour shall not be used up, nor shall the jar of oil run dry, until the day the Lord sends rain on the earth,” 1 Kings 17:14. Not long after this the woman’s son died of illness, 1 Kings 17:17. She complained to Elijah, bitter that the prophet’s presence and her son’s death reminded her of her own sinful nature. 1 Kings 17:18, paraphrased, might be read, “I did not need such a blunt and painful reminder to know that I am a sinner.” Elijah, clearly stricken by her grief, in turn complained to God and prayed for a miracle, which God in His grace granted, reviving the boy, 1 Kings 17:22. The result was similar to the resurrection of Lazarus during Jesus’ ministry, where many believed in Him, John 11:45. Likewise, we read, “Then the woman said to Elijah, “Now by this I know that you are a man of God, and that the word of the Lord in your mouth is the truth,” 1 Kings 17:24. In short, she was saved, having placed her trust in God’s prophet, and her faith in the God that sent him. Jesus, when teaching about the universality of salvation, recalled the widow of Zarephath, since she was a Sidonian, and not Jewish, Luke 4:26.

 

Elijah’s protégé, Elisha, was also privy to a miracle of resurrection, as recorded in 2 Kings chapter 4. A Shunammite woman recognized Elisha as a prophet and convinced her husband to perform a kindness toward him by building an extension on their house for Elisha to stay in whenever he passed by. To repay her kindness Elisha promised the woman a son, 2 Kings 4:16. When the boy developed an intense pain in his head he died on his mother’s knees, prompting the woman to seek Elisha, 2 Kings 4:22. What follows is an urgent, angst-riddled exchange and journey as Elisha returns with the Shunummite woman, while sending Gehazi ahead to lay Elisha’s staff on the dead child. Like Elijah with the widow’s son, Elisha was distraught by this turn of events, but God heeded the prophet’s prayer at last, and the boy was returned to life. 2 Kings 4:37 records what Hebrews in verse 35 relates: “she picked up her son and went out.”

 

What follows the beginning of verse 35 is a list of hardships foisted upon God’s people for their nonconformity. People in general don’t care if you happen to be religious. You have your own personal beliefs and they have theirs, and everyone is entitled to believe what they wish without having one’s belief invade another’s sphere. However, the problem, so to speak, with religious belief is that it cannot be untethered from religious conviction. Oxford defines conviction as, “the quality of showing that you are convinced of what you believe or say.” Looking at the religious melting pot of ancient Athens, none of its denizens abhorred religion. But when Paul came preaching Christ and led them from a generic belief in a high power to a personal, transcendent God that manifested Himself in the person of Jesus, then there were issues. His discourse created division with some mocking and others believing.

 

Christianity from its first was divisive. Judaism, from which Christianity sprung, was divisive. Paul reasoned the divine nature was not likened by any concept humanity could invoke, and did not need anything humanity offered. Rather, God is not a far away deity, but a personal Being, interested and invested in humanity, which He created for a purpose. The evidences of divine superintendence were meant to leave man groping after God; not in some abstract way, but in a meaningful, defined encounter. God is a person, Paul argued, and to demonstrate His personhood clearly He became a Man and commands that humanity repent, or change our collective minds, about who God is, and what His place in our lives was meant to be. God is judge, Paul warned us, and He assured us of the coming judgment by raising Jesus from the dead. The risen Christ is a proof of impending judgment because our faith (or lack thereof) in Jesus will separate peoples at the end of time. The Christian’s faith goes beyond religious zeal. If what the Bible says is true, then humanity stands in jeopardy every moment each of us determines not to give God a thought, but to continue living for self and its interests. This divisive and exclusive belief, which clearly marks a boundary between those within and without the faith, is rather disliked. Christians can be accused of being judgmental, unloving, unforgiving, and dogmatic. The Christian successfully living out their lives by walking in the Spirit can be a powerful witness to the lost world that there is a better way than living for self that no label can mask or hide. Christians are meant to make judgments; all people make judgments, but often do not think about it. In fact, accusing Christians of being judgmental is itself a judgment. But truth requires judgment; truth is not a personal conviction. Truth is when a sinner finally opens his eyes and sees objective reality for the first time, and understands that God defines reality, and He is at its heart, not us.

 

The ecumenical Christian that sees his faith as merely another way to God, without contending for the faith once for all delivered to the saints may escape the dangers herein described that some have suffered. But such a Christian is in worse danger than persecution and physical death, Matthew 10:28. The early Christians learned this hard lesson, and it was a lesson Jesus warned them would come. When the opposition cannot silence the message, they will silence the messenger. Jesus condemned the religious leaders of His day for their hypocrisy, saying, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! Because you build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the monuments of the righteous, and say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.’ Therefore you are witnesses against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets,” Matthew 23:29-31.

 

The author isn’t commending deprivation. He is lauding faith in God over the compromise the world desperately wants the saints to espouse. And many have espoused it already. Every saint loves God when life is going well, as we define it. But what happens when God lowers the hedge, and the suffering begins? Do we hold fast our faith in God? Or do we, like the parable, depart from Him because we have no root? Job reproved his own wife about the matter, telling her, “You speak as one of the foolish women speaks. Shall we indeed accept good from God, and shall we not accept adversity?” Job 2:10. This theme about faith and suffering continues for the remainder of chapter 11 and the beginning of chapter 12, so we will touch more on God’s role in suffering of the saints later, God willing.

 

What can be quickly and clearly pictured in these verses, culminating in verse 37, is the hatred mankind holds for those God loves. They are well if we are silent about our love of God. But God’s love extends beyond the church, or in this instance ancient Israel, to all humanity, though they are His enemies. So too were we, before we were saved by grace. In the brief history of the church recorded in the New Testament, the apostles were arrested and later beaten for their faith, Acts 4:3, 5:40. Stephen was killed, as was James, Acts 7:58-60, 12:2. Peter was arrested as well, Acts 12:3. Paul’s exploits are legion, and he summarizes them better than I can, “in labors more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequently, in deaths often. From the Jews five times I received forty stripes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods; once I was stoned; three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I have been in the deep; in journeys often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils of my own countrymen, in perils of the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren,” 2 Corinthians 11:23-26. Even the writer of the epistle commented about his own deprivation for the name of Christ, Hebrews 10:34. So God permits His saints to suffer for His name, which we are to count as an honor, not the joy of suffering, but the joy of knowing why we suffer. Most people do not even know this. A saint may suffer for his convictions, and the unsaved may persecute when we challenge theirs; God permits the latter and upholds the former.