Chuck Larsen

The author of Hebrews spent a good deal of time on Melchizedek in chapter 7. That person appears in only 4 verses in the Old Testament. The people that are mentioned in Hebrews 11:32-34 cover a lot more material, yet he simply mentions their names and their deeds. It says, “And what more shall I say? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets— who through faith conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, were made strong out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight.” They are all well known heroes to the Israelites and the writer wants them to realize that they lived “by faith.”

The book of Judges contains 12 (maybe 13) characters who were called upon as Judges to deliver the Israelites from their enemies. This four-step cycle in Judges is repeated with each character. First, the people would turn from God and sin. Second, they would be enslaved by their enemies as Moses had predicted in the Law. Third, they would find themselves in despair and call out to God for help. Finally, God would respond by sending them a “Judge” or “deliverer” who stepped up to deliver the people from an enemy that they could not defeat on their own. But after each deliverance the people would forget God again and turn back to sin and the process would start all over again. The author of Hebrews mentions four of those deliverers in this passage; Gideon, Barak, Samson and Jephthah. There were at least 8 others but they are not included in the list because they all make the same point.

Sin has brought the whole human race to a desperate state from which we cannot save ourselves. We need a “hero.” The Judges in Old Testament times were the heroes God would send to redeem his people from oppression and slavery. Because of the sinful nature of all people, we all need a deliverer who will face our enemy for us. Whether it’s an Old Testament Judge, Prophet or King it’s all the same. God called forth a chosen one, an anointed one, to save the people from a situation that sin took them into from which they could not save themselves. The means by which these deliverers saved their people was always faith in God. The people had to trust God’s anointed to deliver them. These are all previews of the Messianic deliverance to come through Jesus. Just as Israel had to trust God to deliver them from their plight through the anointed one, so too does the writer of Hebrews call his readers to trust God to deliver them from their plight through the chosen one, Jesus! The deeds performed were all miraculous! They “…conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, were made strong out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight.” God was specifically working in these “chosen ones” to deliver His people, Just as God “in Christ” was working miracles in our deliverance from sin and death. All of the heroes of the Old Testament are road signs along the way to Jesus. The Bible is all about Jesus!

The salvation and deliverance of Rahab foreshadows the universal call of God to faith in His one and only Son, Jesus Christ. We saw earlier in the book of Hebrews, God incorporating the two sons of Joseph, half Egyptians, into the family of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, making them full heirs to the promises of God. In Hebrews 11:31 we see God including a full-blooded alien into His family. It says, “By faith Rahab the prostitute did not perish with those who were disobedient, because she had given a friendly welcome to the spies.” Westcott says, “The list of the champions of Faith whose victories are specially noticed is closed by a woman and a gentile and an outcast. In this there is a significant foreshadowing of its essential universality.”^[1] God’s promise to Abraham was that all the nations of the world would receive a blessing through his line. The ultimate fulfillment of that was recorded for us all in John 3:16, “for God so loved the world.”

Now Rahab was saved “by faith” not by works. This is the same for everyone mentioned in Chapter 11 and it is the same for us. One of my former professors, Tom Constable, says it like this, “Even though Rahab was a Gentile sinner (i.e., a secular prostitute), God spared her when he destroyed all those around her. Likewise God will preserve the faithful not because they are personally worthy but because of their faith in Him.”^[2] Paul makes that perfectly clear in Ephesians 2:8-9 when he states, “it’s by grace you have been saved, through faith, it’s not of works lest anyone should be able to boast.”

John Owen, the old commentator, says, “This Rahab was by birth a Gentile, an alien from the stock and covenant of Abraham. So, as her conversion to God was an act of free grace and mercy in a special manner, so it was a type and pledge of calling a church from among the Gentiles. She was not just a Gentile—Rahab was an Amorite, that race that was given over in general to being utterly destroyed. Rahab was, therefore, an example of God’s sovereignty in dispensing with his laws as it seems good to him, for out of his own mere pleasure he exempted her from the denounced doom of her race.”^[3] This describes our lot! Being out of the line of the promises of God given to Abraham and his descendants, our only hope is for God to act sovereignly on our behalf. Like Rahab, we are all sinners. But Paul teaches us that “God demonstrated his own love for us, while we were still sinners by Christ dying on the cross for us.” Furthermore, Paul attaches Jesus’ mission to sinners only. He writes in Timothy 1:15, “The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.”

^[1] Brooke Foss Westcott, ed., The Epistle to the Hebrews the Greek Text with Notes and Essays, 3d ed., Classic Commentaries on the Greek New Testament (London: Macmillan, 1903), 377.

^[2] Tom Constable, Tom Constable’s Expository Notes on the Bible (Galaxie Software, 2003), Heb 11:31.

^[3] John Owen, Hebrews, Crossway Classic Commentaries (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1998), 234.

In the first 11 chapters of the book of Hebrews, the author asserts the superiority of Jesus to all elements and figures of the Old Testament by pointing out either directly or by type, Jesus’ fulfillment of the Old Testament. He spent a lot of time pointing out that everything was done by “faith” in an unseen and unrealized promise. The writer even says that Moses’ faith was in the future deliverance promised in the Messiah, Jesus. This is clearly seen in Hebrews 11:26 which says of Moses, “He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward.” In Deuteronomy 18:15, Moses said, “The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers—it is to him you shall listen.” Moses, at last entering the promised land, appeared with Elijah and Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration. Peter insisted on performing a task of building a tabernacle for each of them when God interrupted Peter’s speech and spoke from the sky, “This is my beloved son, listen to Him.” In his sermon in Acts chapter 3, Peter recalls this passage from Deuteronomy and quotes Moses’ words. I’m sure he had in mind the event at the transfiguration. The “Prophet” that would come is none other than Jesus.

Then the author moves on to consider Moses’ replacement, Joshua. He writes in Hebrews 11:30, “By faith the walls of Jericho fell down after they had been encircled for seven days.” When you read the account of the fall of Jericho, you must agree with Bandstra who says, “From a purely military point of view, what God asked them to do would have been considered foolish. But they trusted in God and obeyed him so that those walls came atumblin’ down.”^[1] I believe God brought about the fall of Jericho in this fashion to let His people know that He was acting on their behalf. He would accomplish what He had promised and they need not worry about whether they were confident in their own abilities and strengths or not. At Kadesh Barnea, they were afraid of the giants in the land and forgot that God had promised to drive out the inhabitants for them, so they drew back in fear. He wanted them to remember that He was with them and He’d do exactly what He had promised.

One writer says, “The author uses the first act of faith, passing through the Red Sea, and the last act of faith, encircling and marching around Jericho until the walls of Jericho fell, to cover the whole period of the Wilderness Wanderings. This is all he needs to say because the Israelites showed faith at the beginning and at the end.”^[2] However, in the middle as mentioned in Hebrews chapters 3 and 4, the Israelites trusted or put their confidence in their own strength rather than in God’s work on their behalf. Whenever one takes his eyes off of the Lord, they begin to sink as Peter did when walking on the water. My efforts alone can’t accomplish anything, but with God anything is possible. The writer wants us to understand that we must put our faith in Jesus and what He has accomplished on our behalf. This is why he explains “looking to Jesus” as being the call for all believers today. Joshua and Jesus are the same name. As Joshua delivered Israel, Jesus delivers us.

^[1] Andrew Bandstra, “Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Year C,” in The Lectionary Commentary: Theological Exegesis for Sunday’s Texts, Volume Two, ed. Roger E. Van Harn (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2001), 511–512.

^[2] Arnold G. Fruchtenbaum, The Messianic Jewish Epistles: Hebrews, James, First Peter, Second Peter, Jude, 1st ed. (Tustin, CA: Ariel Ministries, 2005), 164.

It might seem strange to see Moses, over a thousand years before Christ, dealing with the “reproach of Christ.” But this is what Hebrews 11:26 says: “He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward.” I agree with the Hermeneia commentary that suggests, “Moses might be depicted as accepting the reproach that comes with being the forerunner of God’s anointed servant.”^[1] We’ve seen in earlier comments regarding his parents that they seemed to have recognized some divine purpose in Moses even at his birth. He too was aware of a divine calling himself. Moses was in his own right an “anointed one” for the fulfillment of God’s promises regarding the future deliverance of God’s people. Continuing with this idea the commentary says, “Moses could have been understood to be aware of the ultimate perfecter of the faith, the one who would bring God’s promises to reality. Sustained by that awareness, he accepted the reproach that accompanied his association with Christ and Christ’s people.”^[2] The next verse in Hebrews; 11:27, says that Moses saw “him who is invisible.” It reads, “By faith he left Egypt, not being afraid of the anger of the king, for he endured as seeing him who is invisible.”

In Hebrews 13:8, the author of Hebrews says that Christ doesn’t change. “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” Moses seems to have understood to some extent that God’s presence with them during the whole Exodus experience was the Christ. Paul assumes this is true and writes in 1 Corinthians 10:4, “For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ.” Moses’ faith looked forward to an ultimate redemption that would transcend anything this world had to offer. The pleasures, prestige and possessions of Pharaoh’s house were not enough to draw Moses away from his vision of a future redemption to an eternal home not made with human hands. It was this future hope that sustained Moses throughout the wilderness experience and it seems the writer of Hebrews wants that future hope to sustain his readers as well.

Verse 26 ends by telling us that Moses was “looking ahead” to a future reward. His vision looked beyond the physical promised land to a land and a home established by the ultimate redeemer who was with Moses and His people in the wilderness. Moses did not receive the promise of entering into the “promised” land of Canaan.  Yet on the mount of Transfiguration where Jesus’ glory was revealed to Peter, James and John, we see Moses appearing in that land beside Elijah. But, he knew that wasn’t the ultimate promise. Although he did not see the land in his lifetime, he did ultimately see the land and enter into it with Jesus! In the next chapter of Hebrews, the writer will tells us to keep “looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith.” Moses did that and his dreams came true. Just as Moses’ future hope was fulfilled after his death, the writer of Hebrews wants his readers to realize our future hope will be realized, not in this lifetime, but in the one to come!

^[1] Harold W. Attridge and Helmut Koester, The Epistle to the Hebrews: A Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews, Hermeneia—a Critical and Historical Commentary on the Bible (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1989), 341.

^[2] Harold W. Attridge and Helmut Koester, The Epistle to the Hebrews: A Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews, Hermeneia—a Critical and Historical Commentary on the Bible (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1989), 341.