Hebrews 11
v.1
Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.
However, the word in the Greek has in it the sense of an action and not just of some thing, a ‘substance’, and I confess I have personally spent a number of years trying to find a correct word to translate this. But the New Translation of J.N. Darby is especially good in regard to this word: “Faith is the substantiating of things hoped for”. That is much better. It implies the making of them real in experience. How do we ‘substantiate’ something? We are doing so every day. We cannot live in the world without doing so. Do you know the difference between substance and ‘substantiating’? A substance is an object, something before me. ‘Substantiating’ means that I have a certain power or faculty that makes that substance to be real to me. Let us take a simple illustration. By means of our senses we can take things of the world of nature and transfer them into our consciousness so that we can appreciate them. Sight and hearing, for example, are two of my faculties which substantiate to me the world of light and sound. We have colours: red, yellow, green, blue, violet; and these colours are real things. But if I shut my eyes, then to me the colour is no longer real; it is simply nothing - to me. It is not only that the colour is there, but I have power to make that colour true to me and to give it reality in my consciousness. That is the meaning of ‘substantiating’.
WatchmanNeeTheNormalChristianLife
It seems to me, therefore, that the word here has reference to something which imparts reality in the view of the mind to those things which are not seen, and which serves to distinguish them from those things which are unreal and illusive. It is what enables us to feel and act as if they were real, or which causes them to exert an influence over us as if we saw them. Faith does this on all other subjects as well as religion. A belief that there is such a place as London or Calcutta, leads us to act as if this were so, if we have occasion to go to either; a belief that money may be made in a certain undertaking, leads people to act as if this were so; a belief in the veracity of another leads us to act as if this were so. As long as the faith continues, whether it be well-founded or not, it gives all the force of reality to what is believed. We feel and act just as if it were so, or as if we saw the object before our eyes. This, I think, is the clear meaning here. We do not see the things of eternity. We do not see God, or heaven, or the angels, or the redeemed in glory, or the crowns of victory, or the harps of praise; but we have faith in them, and this leads us to act as if we saw them. And this is, undoubtedly, the fact in regard to all who live by faith and who are fairly under its influence.
Faith, I now see, is ” the substance of things hoped for,” and not mere shadow. It is not less than sight, but more. Sight only shows the outward forms of things; faith gives the substance.
It is true your senses cannot perceive Him, but your senses are less to be relied upon than your faith, for senses may be mistaken, but the faith of God’s elect errs not. God makes that which faith depends upon to be more real than anything which the senses can perceive. Christ Jesus is with you, though you hear not His voice and see not His face—He is with you. Try to grasp that truth, and to realize it clearly, for you will never lean until you do.
v.5
By faith Enoch was taken from this life, so that he did not experience death; he could not be found, because God had taken him away. For before he was taken, he was commended as one who pleased God.
It is possible to please God in this lifetime. One needs not to wait until our glorified selves to assuredly know we can please God Himself.
v.6
And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.
Believing he rewards those who earnestly seek him is equally necessary as the belief that he exists. If we could not believe that God would hear and answer our prayers, there could be no encouragement to call upon him. It is not meant here that the desire of the reward is to be the motive for seeking God - for the apostle makes no affirmation on that point; but that it is impossible to make an acceptable approach to him unless we have this belief.
Though the OT does not say that Enoch had faith, the author goes on to explain why he can speak of it so confidently. It is impossible to please God without faith, and Enoch pleased God. Therefore, it is clear that he must have had faith. The author lays it down with the greatest emphasis that faith is absolutely necessary. He does not say simply that without faith it is difficult to please God; he says that without faith it is impossible (GK 105) to please him! There is no substitute for faith. He goes on to lay down two things required in the worshiper. First, he must believe that God exists. This is basic. Without it there is no possibility of faith at all. But it not enough of itself. After all, the demons can know that sort of faith (Jas 2:19). There must be a conviction about God’s moral character, belief “that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.” Without that deep conviction, faith in the biblical sense is not a possibility.
I’ve never read it this way before. This verse logically explains why Enoch had faith. The author inserts the presupposition that one must have faith to please God, and since Enoch pleased God, therefore he was a man of faith!
v.7
By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family. By his faith he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness that comes by faith.
Upright conduct will always condemn wickedness (cf. Mt 12:41-42; Lk 11:31-32; 1Jn 3:12)… Here we have the author’s one use of the term “righteousness” (GK 1466) in the Pauline sense of the righteousness that is ours by faith. Noah was the first man to be called righteous (Ge 6:9). He was right with God because he took God at his word and acted on it.
v.8
By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going.
The last half of this verse is a classical statement of the obedience of faith. People like to know where they are going and to choose their way. But the way forward can be obscure. Abraham was one who could go out, knowing that it was right to do so, but not knowing where it would all lead. God told him to go “to the land that I will show you” (Ge 12:1). Yet it was not till some time after he reached Canaan that he was informed that this was the land God would give his descendants (Ge 12:7; later on Abraham himself was included in the same promise, Ge 13:15). To leave the certainties one knows and go out into what is quite unknown—relying on nothing other than the Word of God—is the essence of faith.
Faith is to know where you’re going after this life even though you will not always know where you’re going in this life.
Faith is wholeheartedly seeking God and pleasing Him even though I don’t know where I’m going in this life. I’m still in graduate school, early in a career that has greatly shifted due to AI, unsure of how God wants to use my giftings, and not married yet. My 20’s is filled with uncertainties. 9/23/25 #jj
v.9
By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise.
v.10
For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God.
v.13
All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth.
We must be careful how we understand this, for the author has already Abraham “received what was promised” (6:15). Humanly speaking, when there was no hope of having a son, he saw Isaac born. God’s promise to Abraham, however, meant far more than that; it is the fullness of the blessing that is in mind in v.13. The best that happened to the saints of old was that they had glimpses of what God had in store for them.
v.16
Instead, they were longing for a better country - a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.
For those courageous enough to believe in God, and to believe in Him as real, and heaven and eternal life as real, God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them.
The use of the past tense should not be overlooked. It is not that God will one day prepare their city but that he has already done so.
The Father’s heart. He is not ashamed of the fools of this world. While the world laughs, He scoffs at nations and collects them as His own rightful inheritance.
v.22
By faith Joseph, when his end was near, spoke about the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt and gave instructions about his bones.
Joseph’s faith, like that of the others, looked beyond death, though his words referred to nothing more than his burial arrangements. But the charge to carry his bones to Canaan (Ge 50:24-25; Ex 13:19; Jos 24:32) gives evidence of his deep conviction that in due course God would send the people back to that land. Joseph’s wish to be buried in Canaan is all the more striking when we remember that, apart from his first seventeen years, he spent all his life in Egypt. But Canaan was the land for the people of God, so he wanted to be buried there. His speaking about the “exodus” of the Israelites from Egypt and concern about the proper disposal of his bones reflect his high faith that in due course God would act.
v.25
He chose to be mistreated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a short time.
Meekness. See also 2 Timothy 4:10.
v.26
He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt, because he was looking ahead to his reward.
Because! Similar to Philippians 3:13 and Luke 9:62.
v.27
By faith he left Egypt, not fearing the king’s anger; he persevered because he saw him who is invisible.
Because! How so?
v.30
By faith the walls of Jericho fell, after the people had marched around them for seven days.
Ministers of the gospel often preach where there seems to be as little prospect of beating down the opposition in the human heart by the message which they deliver, as there was of demolishing the walls of Jericho by the blowing of rams’ horns. They blow the gospel trumpet from week to week and month to month, and there seems to be no tendency in the strong citadel of the heart to yield. Perhaps the only apparent result is to excite ridicule and scorn. Yet let them not despair. Let them blow on. Let them still lift up their voice with faith in God, and in due time the walls of the citadel will totter and fall. God has power over the human heart as he had over Jericho; and in our darkest day of discouragement let us remember that we are never in circumstances indicating less probability of success from any apparent tendency in the means used to accomplish the result, than those were who encompassed this pagan city. With similar confidence in God we may hope for similar success.
v.32-34
And what more shall I say? I do not have time to tell about Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel and the prophets, 33who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised; who shut the mouths of lions, 34quenched the fury of the flames, and escaped the edge of the sword; whose weakness was turned to strength; and who became powerful in battle and routed foreign armies.
Many of us may never have to brave the fiery stake, nor to bow our necks upon the block, to die as Paul did; but if we have grace enough to be out of weakness made strong, we shall not be left out of the roll of the nobles of faith, and God’s name shall not fail to be glorified in our persons.
The fact soon comes home to us that we are weak where we most of all desire to be strong.
v.35-36
Women received back their dead, raised to life again. Others were tortured and refused to be released, so that they might gain a better resurrection. 36Some faced jeers and flogging, while still others were chained and put in prison.
Women received their dead back to life under Elijah and Elisha (1 Kings 17:21-24; 2 Kings 4:35-37). “And others” marks a transition: faith does not always bring deliverance (cf. Dan 3:18), as the author’s readers already knew (Heb 10:32-39) and might learn further (12:4). Nearly all Jews knew the stories of Maccabean martyrs, who were tortured in various ways: scalded to death, having skin flayed off, stretched on the wheel and so on. Regular torture practices of the Greeks included fire, thumbscrews and (what is probably meant by “tortured” here) stretching on a wheel to break the person’s joints, then beating the victim to death (sometimes pounding the stomach as if it were a drum) in that helpless position. The Maccabean martyrs were scourged, a punishment that the Romans had continued to use as well. All Jewish sources that addressed the issue agreed that martyrs would receive preferential treatment at the *resurrection, and 2 Maccabees declares that this was the hope that enabled the martyrs to endure.
v.38
the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground.
They wandered in lonely places, and their shelters were “caves and holes in the ground.” The heroes of the faith had no mansions; they cared for other things than their own comfort.