HEBREWS 11 (FIRST READING)
[p. 85] HEBREWS 11 (FIRST READING)
CAC It is fairly easy to see as regards the Old Testament saints that their faith laid hold of what was future. In the light of what is still future they suffered and passed out of this world without gaining anything outwardly. This is as true for ourselves; our portion is ‘in the ages yet to come’ as we sing sometimes. God is still maintaining the faith principle and the faith system is in contrast with all that is in the world and all that can be seen. Faith really links on with the purpose of God. The purpose of God in Ephesians is to place the saints in the heavenlies. No one can see that. It is a wonderful scene where Christ is sitting in the heavenlies, but none of us has seen Him.
Ques It refers here to not casting away your confidence. Would you explain that?
CAC I suppose they had known earlier days. It says, “Call to mind the earlier days”. In those earlier days they had been prepared to suffer reproach and be joined in sympathy with those who were suffering. There is a tendency with us of those earlier days not being maintained: it is an exercise for us all. In the earlier days it pleases God that there should be freshness and reality so that there is something there that God can appeal to, as He said to Israel, “I remember for thee the kindness of thy youth, the love of thine espousals, when thou wentest after me in the wilderness, in a land not sown”, Jeremiah 2: 2. These Hebrew saints had suffered when they were first enlightened and had been connected with others who had suffered and they are told not to lose their confidence. There is a danger of stopping short. Miriam is one of the most pathetic pictures in Scripture — she died just in sight of the land. It is a [p. 86] solemn warning. Miriam represents at the beginning a happy believer; she went out of Egypt with dances and sang a beautiful refrain — “Jehovah... is highly exalted”. She was happy in thinking of the triumph of Jehovah, but she took no account of what was great in the song of Moses, that is, the purpose of God, how He is going to bring His people in and plant them in the inheritance. So she stopped short of the land and never reached it. It is a warning not to cast away your confidence. It is a great thing to keep the purpose of God in view. The youngest believer can cherish Ephesians 1 and 2 as God’s will for them. It is only a short time before the Lord comes; when He comes He will introduce us into all the purpose of God for us. In the meantime we live by faith; we not only believe but we live on that principle.
Ques Is faith a peculiar characteristic of this dispensation?
CAC Yes, and it links on with what has been in the past, as chapter 11 shews.
Rem In Romans we see the kind of people who live by faith — the righteous; in Galatians we live by faith in contrast to law, and in Hebrews it is a question of life — we live by faith.
CAC It seems so; you put the emphasis on three different words in the quotation. The thought of living is that we are for God’s pleasure; that is the idea of living here. It is suggested in, “If he draw back, my soul does not take pleasure in him”. Living is in contrast to drawing back to the world and the religious system that does not value Christ. We should covet to LIVE. Nothing in our lives is any pleasure to God except that which is in faith. If we do not come to this meeting in faith we are not pleasing to God.
Rem In the gospels the Lord was refreshed by the different instances [p. 87] of faith.
CAC Yes. It is really what stands connected with the purpose of God, what God has in mind. In this epistle we get great things presented to us objectively — the deity of the Son in chapter 1, and the manhood of Christ in chapter 2.
The sacrifice of Christ and the priesthood are largely presented in this epistle. These are marvellous things which throw into the shade this world and all that is connected with the system of sight. The purpose of God comes in in connection with the calling and it is on that line that the saints come into view as marked by faith and the divine nature. That is the subjective side: love to God’s name as manifested towards His people; that is all on the line of purpose.
Rem The apostle said, “I live by faith, the faith of the Son of God”, Galatians 2: 20.
CAC Yes. The life he lived in the flesh he lived by faith of the Son of God. He walked by the light of an unseen Person: that is a wonderful thing. I ask myself sometimes, ‘Am I walking in the light of what is unseen?’ If I am walking in the light of what is seen I am no pleasure to God.
Rem I suppose the Lord’s coming you were speaking of is in connection with the coming glory. It is not exactly the rapture.
CAC No. I was speaking of the time when all that is known to faith now will be known publicly. It is a great thing. I have thought sometimes that there is no time in our history when life is so in evidence as it is when we are in the assembly. What are we occupied with there? If we take the poorest morning meeting that there ever was, what is before the saints? What is unseen. Every hymn or prayer or word of ministry relates to what is unseen. As far as we enjoy that we live.
Ques Is it the same as, “He also who eats me shall live also on account of me”, John 6: 57?
CAC It has often been remarked that that text refers to Christ as Priest. We live on account of the Priest; that goes well with Hebrews.
Ques It has often been said by unconverted people, ‘Shew us some element in regard to unseen things’. Does that lend force to the word ‘faith’?
CAC We expect the world to walk by sight, but those who come into the purpose of God are partakers of the heavenly calling and heirs of promise by faith.
Rem These men in Hebrews 11 had not the Spirit as we have it.
CAC No. The faith world is the only world worth looking at. What is this world with its schemes and improvements? It is a vast graveyard. The world of science is a dreadful snare, especially when it takes a religious form. Grand buildings and beautiful organs are all part of the sight system and there is nothing in that for faith. It is helpful to see that the idea of living is being pleasurable to God.
Rem That must be the faith system.
CAC Yes, because faith takes account of what is pleasurable to God. God takes no interest in the schemes of men. We want to be vital and to have things vital and they are only vital as they are in faith. The holiest is the place where you can be abstracted from the sight system. You spiritually reach a spot in the assurance of your faith where there is no intrusion of the sight system. Nothing is present to consciousness but what is within the veil. What a wonderful thing to live for five minutes there: it would change us for the rest of our lives. We come to the climax of things in having the privilege of the holiest. In the Old Testament we have the thought of going into the sanctuary, but that is intensified now; the holiest is the innermost [p. 89] shrine. God would speak to us of the world to come. God does not talk to us of this world, but of the world to come, and christians characteristically talk of the world to come. It says, “the habitable world which is to come, of which we speak”. It has often been remarked that from the outset of sin God had in view the world to come. From the garden of Eden He had in view the crushing of the serpent’s head. The world to which the serpent belonged was going to disappear to make room for another world which would be all of God.
Ques Would faith always stand in relation to Christ?
CAC Yes, surely. We need to remind each other of this because there is a continual tendency to go back to the present world instead of getting more and more interested and occupied with the world to come. We get the most solemn warnings that there are in scripture in this epistle. They would not be there if we did not need them.
Rem Newspapers would detract us from the world to come.
CAC One would not like to live in this world. We may have to touch it, but I would not like to live in it. We may have to work and get our temporal living in the world, but we should live in the faith world.
Rem You alluded to Demas last week; it says of him that he “loved the present age”.
CAC Yes, and it is a solemn thing to be said of a man that he loved the present age, because it is of such a character that in a short time God is going to sweep it away with the besom of destruction. What a dreadful thing to love that world! I feel that we need to encourage one another in relation to this great matter of living by faith.
Ques What is the world to come marked by?
CAC By the exaltation of Christ and the dominance of all that is of God. All the things that are despised and thought nothing of in this world are what will mark the [p. 90] situation. It will not be a faith system then, but a time of sight.
Rem It speaks of the proving of your faith.
CAC Yes. Peter suggests that faith will be tried by fire. God has pleasure in having it tested. If you had a bit of pure gold you would not mind putting it in the crucible because you would know that it would come out purified: so God has pleasure in putting faith to the test.
The idea of recompense is present. Moses had respect to the recompense. He had great recompense: fancy being forty days in the mount with God, looking at the pattern of heavenly things and becoming a repository of divine confidence! Was not that better than the treasures of Egypt? If we give up a bit of the world, think of the things we have as recompense! That is the measure of our faith — what we have been prepared to give up. There is a great system of things hoped for. You can see it in the faces of the saints in assembly; they are a people divinely happy in the presence of unseen things; things are profoundly real if they are unseen. God loves to give some distinct assurance of the reality of these things. In one sense faith gives a proper outlook on seen things; see Hebrews 11: 3 — “By faith we apprehend that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that that which is seen should not take its origin from things which appear”. Faith enters into our apprehension of creation as connecting it with the unseen Creator. This delivers us from the wretched ideas men have as to creation.
Ques Does it stand in contrast to Romans 1: 20, things perceived by the mind?
CAC There is adequate testimony, even by things made, to the eternal power and divinity of God. Every human being comes under responsibility and is without excuse. “There is no speech and there are no words, yet their voice is heard”, Psalm 19: 3. It is a silent witness. God [p. 91] is speaking from the heavens to every one of His creatures. There is enough testimony from the heavens to convert a man without his having ever heard the gospel. I am quite certain that where in such cases the testimony of nature is received and souls turn to God from a life of sin they will be eternally blessed.
Ques Is there any difference between the world being framed and being created?
CAC I thought the word ‘framed’ suggested a great design in it all. The word of God framed it all, so everything speaks of God. God has designed it to speak of Himself.
Ques Does the word ‘divinity’ speak of God characteristically?
CAC It is God in His creatorial majesty. Divinity is what God is characteristically as the great Source of creation; all testifies to His divinity. Creation testifies to His power and divinity; it is not a moral testimony. A watch shews the great skill of the watchmaker but it does not give his moral character. A man might make a good watch and be a bad man!
Ques Why does Hebrews 11 start with Abel, not Adam?
CAC The wisdom of the Spirit has passed over Adam; there is no thought of deriving anything from Adam.
Ques Have we to start with a right idea of God?
CAC God in His greatness must be before the soul first and then the necessity arises for knowing Him morally, so the thought of sacrifice comes in, which Adam did not take up. We do not know that Adam ever brought a sacrifice. The coats of skin were the divine provision, but what the Spirit brings out here is man’s side.
Rem Adam stands in contrast to Christ, so it would not be right to bring in Adam.
CAC Quite so. Any reference to the faith of Adam [p. 92] is of an obscure nature. He called his wife Eve; that is the only indication that he had faith. He called her life; if he had not had faith he would have called her death, as she brought death in. There were not moral exercises in Adam as we have in Abel, who brought in a sacrifice. Adam got the benefit of a sacrifice but we are not told that he brought a sacrifice. Abel did; he is an advance on Adam. This chapter is a wonderful progression in faith: it goes on to the point of the gentile being in the land. Every incident adds to our conception of what faith does. It is cumulative, you have to put it all together. You get the principle of faith at the outset and then you have a system of household management in which every detail is in faith. Everything that is done in the household is to be done in faith.