This is the fifth post in a series from Hebrews 11. You’ll find all the posts done so far in this series listed here.
Next up is Abraham, who gets more space from the writer of Hebrews than anyone else among the faithful ancients listed in Hebrews 11. The Jews honored Abraham as the father of their race, but he has a special place to the New Testament Christians, too, for he is also the father of all believers. Here’s what the first three verses of the section on Abraham’s faith say:
By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place he would later receive as an inheritance, and he went out without understanding where he was going. By faith he lived as a foreigner in the promised land as though it were a foreign country, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, who were fellow heirs of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city with firm foundations, whose architect and builder is God. (Hebrews 11:8-10 NET)
Do you remember in Genesis 12 when God tells Abraham to get up and leave everything behind for a destination unknown? God tells him,
“Go out from your country,
your relatives,
and your father’s household
to the land that I will show you.”
(Genesis 12:1 NET)
How much Abraham was asked to leave behind! These were familiar things that he already possessed—things that brought security, solid things, things seen—and God asked him to leave them all. And Abraham does what God asked of him on the basis of God’s command and God’s promise alone—the promise of God’s blessing and of land in an unknown place. God was asking him to act on the certainty of things he couldn’t see, to give up things visible for things that were invisible to him, and Abraham obeyed. The sort of conviction that is required to act on nothing but the command and promise of God is real faith, so it was by faith that Abraham obeyed God’s command without knowing exactly what was in store for him.
Even when Abraham reached the land God promised him, he didn’t settle there, but lived as if he were a resident alien. The only piece of land Abraham owned was the field he purchased to bury his wife Sarah. Even Abraham’s son and grandson, who were heirs to the promise from God along with Abraham, continued to live in tents and did not possess the land of promise.
Abraham had every reason to be disillusioned, yet he was steadfast in his faith. The writer tells us that the reason he remained steadfast when his earthly circumstances gave him no reason for hope was that his hope was not grounded anything earthly, but in “the city with firm foundations, whose architect and builder is God.” This city, of course, was not an existing earthly city, but a city yet to come (Hebrews 13:14ff), a heavenly one. It’s the “city with firm foundations”—the sort of city you can count on to always be there, unlike a temporal city that goes in and out of existence over time. This city is an eternal city planned and constructed by God.
Abraham understood that there was an eternal realm, and it was in this realm that God was building according to his promises. Abraham could keep on trusting God and obeying him even though he didn’t see the fulfillment of God’s promises to him in his own lifetime, for what he hoped for was not something that could be fulfilled by good things in this earthly life. What Abraham longed for above everything else was eternal life with God, life in a heavenly country, in the city built by God.