I. Introduction
A. The epistle to the Hebrews is unique in that all 13 chapters are devoted to one task: to try to encourage and strengthen a community of Jewish Christians who have been experiencing persecutions which have been testing their faith.
1. To this end, in Hebrews 11 the author has been reminding them of a number of examples of their forefathers who likewise faced difficulties but went through them in faith.
B. This is our fourth and final week in this magnificent chapter.
1. So far, we’ve talked mostly about Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham (and the other patriarchs) and Moses (and the Israelites in the time of the Exodus and the entrance into the promised land).
2. The author still has many other examples in mind, but feels like he can’t just keep going into detail about their example of faith so he resorts to lists of other examples, and the kinds of things they did and the kinds of things they experienced in their lives of faith.
C. Read Hebrews 11:32-40
II. There is an important transition in this list that might go unnoticed. In other words, the first half of the list is different in a very significant way from the second half of the list.
A. The first part of the list 32-35a is made up of people who were weak or in trouble, who looked doomed but God intervened and delivered them or gave them victory. In this half of the list we find:
1. David: youngest son of an insignificant family, hunted by the king, but he killed a giant and became the hero of the land. He became king and extended his kingdom to glorious proportions.
2. Gideon – Israel oppressed by Midian, he led 300 men against 120,000 Midianites and won (Judges 6-7)
3. Daniel in the lion’s den — 33d “stopped the mouths of lions” – It looked like it was all over for them but God delivered them.
4. Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego — 34a “quenched the power of fire” – Thrown into a sure death in the fiery furnace, God delivered them and they weren’t burned up.
5. The widow of Zarephath (1Kings 17:17-24) and the Shunammite woman (2Kings 4:17-37) — 35a “Women received back their dead by resurrection.” – The sons of these women died and then were raised from the dead under the ministries of the prophets Elijah and Elisha.
6. The people of faith in the first half of the list were delivered from their earthly sufferings or dilemmas. They conquered kingdoms, they were rescued from lions and fires and swords, they were made strong out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight. They faced enormous difficulties and adversaries. They trusted in God and He intervened in triumph.
B. The second half of the list 35b-38 includes no divine interventions.
1. 35b Some were tortured, refusing to accept release, so that they might rise again to a better life.
2. 36 Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment.
3. 37 They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword. They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated, 38...wandering about in deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.
4. The prophets were stoned (Matt.23:37), tradition tells us that the prophet Isaiah was sawn in two, the prophet Jeremiah was mocked, flogged and imprisoned in chains — but in all of these cases there was no last minute rescue, no great miracle to avert the danger.
5. The first half of the list talks about some who “escaped the edge of the sword” (34), the second half of the lists talks about some “were killed with the sword” (37).
6. E.g. in the Bible’s story we read that Elijah escaped Jezebel’s vengeance, but at the same time we’re told about other prophets of the Lord being “slain … with the sword” (1Kings 19:10).
7. We prefer stories like we have in the first half of the list. And it’s wonderful that so often God blesses His people in these ways.
8. But if that’s the extent of your faith, you don’t have faith at all.
9. Our faith is not in what we think God should or will do here on this earth. Our faith is in God Himself, who knows everything and who can be trusted to do the perfect thing whether it’s what we want or not.
10. So Peter was rescued at the last hour but God allowed James to be executed. David was in the first half of the list but his good friend Jonathan was not. Jonathan was born the son of the king, but because he did the right thing, he lost everything and was killed.
11. I want to draw your attention to one sentence in particular here: in v.35b. “Some were tortured, refusing to accept release, so that they might rise again to a better life.”
a. First, there’s a small translation issue here. The word translated “some” here really means “others.” The reason the ESV translates it “some” is because there’s another word in the next verse which also means “others” and it sounds bad to use the same word twice in a short space.
b. “Women received back their dead by resurrection. Others were tortured, refusing to accept release, so that they might rise again to a better life.” There seems to be a connection between the two sentences. It seems to say, “Some women received back their dead, but other women refused to accept release.”
c. Even if we know all the Bible stories, the words of 35b don’t sound familiar to us. However, the original readers of the epistle to the Hebrews would have known well what this is talking about.
d. This is an event recorded in 2Maccabees which occurred between the end of the OT and the beginning of the NT, just about 200 years before their time.
e. After Israel’s restoration to the land of Palestine, about a century and 2/3 before the birth of Christ, while Israel was ruled by the Greek empire, a powerful king named Antiochus Epiphanes tried to compel the Jews to forsake the laws of God, and polluted the temple in Jerusalem calling it the temple of Zeus. (2Maccabees 6:1-4 — prophesied in Dan.11:30-33).
f. This led to the Maccabaean revolt, which led in turn to a brutal backlash of persecution against the Jews.
g. One the best known stories of this persecution seems to be in mind here in Heb.11:35b.
h. It’s a brutal but powerful story about a mother and her seven sons who were martyred for their refusal to transgress the law of God.
i. (God wants this to be disturbing to us: He’s already talked about people being sawn in two, and now He’s bringing to mind a story they knew the gory details of well.)
j. It happened that seven brothers and their mother were arrested and were being compelled by the king, under torture with whips and cords, to break the law of God. One of them stepped forward and said, “We are ready to die rather than transgress the laws of our fathers.” At this, the king fell into a rage, and he commanded that the tongue of their spokesman be cut out and that they scalp him and cut off his hands and feet, while the rest of the brothers and the mother looked on. When all this was done, the king ordered them to take him to the fire, still breathing, and to fry him in a pan. The brothers and their mother encouraged one another to die nobly, saying, “The Lord God is watching over us and in truth has compassion on us.” After the first brother had died in this way, they brought forward the brothers one by one. They scalped them, and asked them, “Will you obey us rather than have your body punished limb by limb?” But each one refused. One of them, before he was killed, said to the king, “You accursed wretch, you dismiss us from this present life, but the King of the universe will raise us up to an everlasting renewal of life, because we have died for his laws.” Another, when it was his turn, quickly stuck out his tongue and courageously stretched forth his hands, and said nobly, “I got these from Heaven, and rather than disobey God’s laws I now give them up, and from Him I hope to get them back again.” The amazing mother, though she saw her seven sons perish in one day, bore it with good courage because of her hope in the Lord. She encouraged each of them in their own language, saying to them, “It was not I who gave you life and breath, nor I who set in order the elements within each of you. The Creator of the world, who shaped the beginning of man and devised the origin of all things, will in his mercy give life and breath back to you again, since you now forget yourselves for the sake of His law.” When there was only one brother left — the youngest, Antiochus appealed to him, promising with oaths that he would make him rich and enviable if he would turn from the ways of his fathers, and that he would take him for his friend and entrust him with public affairs. When it became evident that the young man would not listen, the king urged the mother to advise her boy to save himself. She leaned over to her son and said: “My son, do not fear this butcher, but prove worthy of your brothers. Accept death, so that in God’s mercy I may get you back again with your brothers.” While she was still speaking, the young man turned to the king and said, “What are you waiting for? I will not obey the king’s command, but I obey the command of the law that was given to our fathers through Moses. My brothers, after enduring a brief suffering have drunk of everflowing life; but you, by the judgment of God, will receive just punishment for your arrogance. I, like my brothers, give up body and life for the law of our fathers.” The king fell into a rage, and treated that son even worse than the others. And so the boy died putting his whole trust in the Lord. Last of all, the mother died. (2Maccabees 7:1–41)
III. Application
A. You see, there is one promise of God that rises above all the others. All of the promises of God culminate in one great promise.
1. It is the promise that we will rise to a better life (35)
2. The two sons mentioned in v. 35a were raised to old life, a life which included sin, suffering and death. But in the second half of the verse it talks about being raised to a better life. It’s the difference between resuscitation and resurrection.
3. This is why Hebrews 11 keeps saying that these heroes of faith never received what was promised (v.13, 39).
4. And that’s why v.39-40 go on to talk about a better life, a perfected life: “And all these, though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised, 40 since God had provided something better for us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect.”
a. This is a little cryptic, but let’s look at what it’s saying.
b. They didn’t have the promises fulfilled during their lives on earth.
c. The promises will be fulfilled, though: “they will be made perfect.”
d. What was God waiting for? He was waiting for something better provided for us — and them.
e. That something, of course, is Jesus. He is the thing it that has been added to their situation.
f. What’s so special about us that God waiting for us before He would bless them?
(1) We are the people of Jesus. We are the ones blessed with the knowledge of Him.
(2) Prophets of old longed to see what we see.
g. But now we have all seen it together — they who dwell in the bosom of the Father, and we who still walk on the earth.
(1) Jesus has been revealed to all! And all now enjoy unrestricted access to God through Christ, as fellow-citizens of the heavenly Jerusalem.
(2) “All the promises of God find their Yes in Jesus!” – 2Corinthians 1:20
5. The coming of Jesus explains the second half of the list in Heb.11:32-38. He is God’s intervention. In His crucifixion and resurrection we see that sometimes God’s intervention comes not at the last minute but AFTER the last minute, AFTER the death.
a. This helps us to see that every sorrow will be turned into gold, every wound into glory, every death into life.
6. In His coming, Jesus also begins the fulfilment of the great and ultimate promise – His resurrection begins the great resurrection, His forgiveness begins the declaration of our innocence and acceptance, the presence of His Holy Spirit with us is the first piece of our resurrection fellowship with the Lord.
a. And the fact that it’s already begun makes it no longer merely theoretical, but absolutely certain.
7. It makes all the difference in the world when a person knows he will rise to a better life, when he knows that this earthly life is not the ultimate thing, but mere preparation for a better life, when he knows that those who put their faith in Christ are going to get it all back...
a. We’re going to get our bodies back. We’re going to get our memory back. We’re going to get our loved ones back. We’re going to get this world back.
IV. Conclusion
A. Those who have gone before us suffered a lot.
1. We shouldn’t be surprised when we suffer as well.
2. Our lives are connected with theirs. They are our ancestors. We’ve been adopted into the family of Christ, the family of redemption.
3. Their stories are for us. Do we read them? Do we love them? Do we take them personally?
B. 38a “of whom the world was not worthy”
1. This phrase reveals how God thinks about these little seemingly insignificant people of faith who got crushed in the gears of history.
2. They were rejected as those unworthy of the world, but in reality the world was unworthy of them.
3. Like Jesus, they were “rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious” (1Peter 2:4)
4. Rejected like Jesus, God has made them the foundation of the new, glorious city of faith, Jesus Himself being “the stone that the builders rejected [who] has become the cornerstone” (Psalm 118:22).