Living by faith

In Hebrews 11:13, the author of Hebrews slips in a summary of what he’s covered so far in the lives of Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham and Sarah. His summary being: “All these people were still living by faith when they died” – or in Enoch’s case, when “God took him away” (7).

But what were they “living by faith” in? According to verse 13, it was faith in “the things promised.” So they knew that something had been promised, which they could “see” and “welcome from a distance,” giving them a “longing for a better country – a heavenly one” (16). And even though they couldn’t see it in their lifetimes, they were “sure of what they hoped for and certain of what they hadn’t yet seen in reality” (1) – of something much better than the world they were living in.

But how did they come to that realization? Well, they were all alive for a start. Which meant something was up, because they knew what had happened in the Garden of Eden, and God’s promise of death for eating off the wrong tree. But here they all were experiencing life instead, which had to mean that God still had some purpose in mind for humans.

A purpose that God first made clear in Genesis 4:3-5 too, in the giving of offerings to him, and Abel grasping why, as seen in his offering being the best portions from some of his firstborn sheep, picturing the sacrifice needed for the redemption of humanity from the death caused by Adam and Eve. Redemption, the first step in our salvation, therefore, was “the thing promised” that Abel saw. 

Enoch saw the next step in the salvation God was offering humans, that having accepted sacrifice as the first step, “walking with God” was now possible again, restoring the open, guilt-free relationship with God that Adam and Eve had lost. This was “the thing promised” that Enoch saw. 

Noah pictured the third step. Not only did he “walk with God,” he was also “blameless among the people of his time” (9). He did what Adam and Eve didn’t do: resist evil’s alternative world. This, then, was “the thing promised” that Noah saw, a better world where evil would not rule.

But it was Abraham who saw the ultimate thing promised that would make all these other promises possible, the clear proof that “God raises the dead”….(next blog)