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Hebrews 11:22

Jesus is better than Joseph

Filed Under: Devotions by Chuck
March 5, 2020

Joseph had embraced God’s promises to his ancestors. When he was dying, he made two pronouncements: one about God’s deliverance of Israel from Egypt, and one about taking his bones with them when they go. In Hebrews 22:11 the writer says these were done in faith. “By faith Joseph, at the end of his life, made mention of the exodus of the Israelites and gave directions concerning his bones.” The Exodus of course would not take place for several hundreds of years. It was a distant future. It was so far in the future that each succeeding generation would have to be schooled in their ancestor’s request that his bones be taken with them to the land that God had promised to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob when they go. Thus, Joseph’s request, by faith, on his death bed, kept the promise of God alive for many generations. They knew that God would not leave them as slaves in Egypt forever and that He would deliver them into the land He had promised many generations earlier. The bones of Joseph remained a constant reminder to Israel of the coming deliverance from slavery.

The writer of Hebrews teaches us to look for Jesus when we read the Old Testament. He had earlier chosen a very remote figure named Melchizedek and showed us how the Old Testament teaches us that he was a type of Christ. There are only four verses in the Old Testament about Melchizedek, yet the author of Hebrews spends more than an entire chapter explaining how Jesus was a priest according to the order of Melchizedek instead of the order of Aaron and the Levites. There are 13 chapters in the book of Genesis about Joseph, yet the writer of Hebrews dedicates only this one verse to him. Joseph is one of the clearest types of Christ in the Old Testament. There are numerous pictures of Christ in Joseph but our author focuses on just one thing; his faith in a future deliverance along with the fulfillment of the promise of a land of their own.

Joseph’s bones served as a reminder to all of Israel that God wasn’t finished with them even though they were born and raised in slavery. Joseph gave his people hope for their future. But Jesus gives us a better hope and a better covenant which has been discussed thoroughly by the writer of Hebrews in earlier chapters. Jesus is “better” because he didn’t leave us his bones as a reminder. One might say that Joseph’s bones served as God’s guarantee. But Jesus left us an empty grave! Joseph served as a reminder of the earthly promises of God while Jesus serves as a reminder of the eternal, heavenly, promises of God. Joseph looked forward to the deliverance from slavery in Egypt through the covenant that Moses would bring down from Mount Sinai. Jesus’ covenant is better because He is the “guarantee” of what lies beyond the grave for all those who believe in Him. Hebrews 7:22 said speaking of Jesus’ role as our High Priest, “This makes Jesus the guarantor of a better covenant.”

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Hebrews 11:21, Genesis 48:5

Co-heirs with Jesus!

Filed Under: Devotions by Chuck
March 5, 2020

The author of Hebrews fails to mention the blessing that Jacob bestowed on all the sons he bore through Leah, Rachel, and their two hand maids. He skips right to the two sons of Joseph who were half Egyptian.  Hebrews 11:21 says, “By faith Jacob, when dying, blessed each of the sons of Joseph, bowing in worship over the head of his staff.” The future blessings bestowed by their father on the other eleven are recorded at the end of Genesis and were well known by the Jews of every generation. They each traced their lineage back to one of those tribes. But Joseph was the son he had received back from the dead! Like Jesus, Joseph was the “well beloved” son of his father. His two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh received Joseph’s blessing and had an equal share with the other 11 patriarchs. In Genesis 48:5, Jacob said that Joseph’s two sons would be his sons in the same way “Reuben and Simeon” are his sons.  Thus, we might say that Jacob adopted Ephraim and Manasseh.

This is interesting because Joseph’s sons were not full descendants of Abraham. They were half Egyptian. In his commentary on this verse, Homer Kent suggests that this is the reason for only mentioning them and not the other sons. He writes, “No reason is given why these alone are considered. Perhaps it was partly because they had been born in Egypt to an Egyptian mother, and now Jacob’s action fully adopted them into the family.”[1] This pictures the fulfillment of God’s promises to Abraham that “through you, all the nations of the earth will be blessed.”  We would see God adopting other Gentiles into his elect family again. Rahab, the harlot, was a Canaanite. Ruth was a Moabite. Yet both of these women were adopted as “children of God” and were even included in the line of the Messiah.

The “blessings” that Jacob bestowed upon all his sons, including Ephraim and Manasseh, concerned the future. It contained “good things” that would come to them in the future. The Greek word for blessing is “eulogeo” and literally translates as “good words.” We have taken it literally into the English language as “eulogy.” To us it means good things said about a person after they have died. In the case of Jacob and some others in the Bible, it’s used to promise good things in the future to those still living! The Gospel, euangelion, is the proclamation of the good news of Jesus’ death on the cross for our sins and resurrection from the dead. He is right now interceding for us in heaven while preparing our future home. The Gospel includes our adoption into the family of faith in fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham to “bless” all the nations on earth through him. In Christ, we too are adopted into God’s family. In essence God says, “as Reuben and Simeon are my heirs so too are you!”

[1] Homer A. Kent Jr., The Epistle to the Hebrews: A Commentary (Winona Lake, IN: BMH Books, 1983), 233.

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Hebrews 11:20, Galatians 3:7-9

Jesus is the fulfillment of the Promise!

Filed Under: Devotions by Chuck
March 3, 2020

I’ve mentioned previously that Isaac was a picture of Jesus. He was the one and only well loved son of his father like Jesus. He was the result of divine intervention. God brought about his conception miraculously. Jesus was the result of a miraculous conception. Isaac was a son to be sacrificed as a burnt offering for sin on Mount Moriah where Jesus was crucified. Abraham figuratively received his son back from the dead, and Jesus literally was raised from the dead. All this is way too much to be coincidence. We might see another similarity as well recorded by the author of Hebrews in 11:20. It says, “By faith Isaac invoked future blessings on Jacob and Esau.”

Cockerill says, “The preacher, in his original Greek text, emphasizes the main point of this verse by placing it first: It was in regard to their future that Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau. The New American Standard Bible or New King James Version translations of this phrase clarify another point: ‘regarding things to come’ or ‘concerning things to come.’ Isaac did not merely bless them for the future, but his blessing pertained to what God was going to do in the future. Genesis 28:4 records how Isaac gave Jacob ‘the blessing of Abraham.’ Thus, Isaac looked forward to the same promised blessing that Abraham had anticipated. This blessing finds its fulfillment in Christ’s High Priestly work which makes the heavenly homeland accessible. Isaac’s faith is, indeed, a chip off the old block. ‘Things to come’ fits very well with the preacher’s other descriptions of the coming salvation (see Hebrews 2:5; 6:5; 9:11; 10:1; 13:14).”[1]

Paul explains this in Galatians 3:7-9. He writes, “Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, ‘In you shall all the nations be blessed.’ So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.” The blessing to both Abraham and his descendants is the blessing of a High Priest who could satisfy the demands of a just God on behalf of all those who believe. It was a distant future for Abraham, Isaac and Jacob but the coming of the Messiah began the fulfillment of that promise and those of faith find peace with God through Jesus. But the full completion of that promise is yet future for us all. Jesus will return and wipe away every tear, put away all sin, and bring peace to all mankind. Isaiah 11:6 speaks of the time when the lion will lay down next to the lamb and there will be no harm. War, suffering and pain will be no more. That means Iran & Iraq will lie down with Israel.

[1] Gareth L. Cockerill, Hebrews: A Bible Commentary in the Wesleyan Tradition (Indianapolis, IN: Wesleyan Publishing House, 1998), 245–246.

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Hebrews 11:17-18, Deuteronomy 18:10

Jesus is our assurance of heaven!

Filed Under: Devotions by Chuck
March 3, 2020

When the author of Hebrews brings up the story of Abraham, he’s initially concerned with the faith he had that drew him from his home and family to live as a pilgrim on the earth. But in Chapter 11 verses 17-18, he focuses on the key event of Abraham’s life. It says, “By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was in the act of offering up his only son, of whom it was said, ‘Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.’ He considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back.” The law forbids such an offering. In Deuteronomy 18:10 God says, “There shall not be found among you anyone who burns his son or his daughter as an offering.” In light of God’s direct prohibition of such a sacrifice, I’m convinced God had no intention of Abraham carrying out the sacrifice of his son. God would never demand such a sacrifice from anyone but Himself.

Isaac is a picture of Jesus. He was the miraculous son of Abraham and Sarah. They were beyond the age of conception and yet God brought about his conception and birth. It was a miracle. Jesus too had a miraculous conception and birth. Isaac is called “the beloved son” of his father. So too was Jesus. On two occasions, his baptism and transfiguration, the skies opened, and God the Father spoke and said, “this is my beloved son.” Isaac was as good as dead in Abraham’s mind, but then God intervened, and he received his son back from the dead “figuratively speaking.” With Christ it was a reality. God the father received His beloved Son back from the dead. The ram caught in the thicket on Mount Moriah took Isaac’s place on the altar and it was said “on the mount of the Lord He will provide the sacrifice Himself.” It was on the same mountain range that Calvary’s cross held the sacrifice of God’s only son to pay the penalty for our sins. He was and remains as John the Baptist called him, “The lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world.”

Abraham’s faith was a faith that transcended this physical realm. He trusted in the benevolent nature of God regardless of the trials and tests in his life. He knew in his mind and in his heart that God would fulfill His promises. Wiersbe wrote, “The great theologian John Calvin defined faith as ‘a steady and certain knowledge of the Divine benevolence towards us, which, being founded on the truth of the gratuitous promise in Christ, is both revealed to our minds, and confirmed to our hearts, by the Holy Spirit.’ Note that faith is founded on divine truth (God’s promise) and is witnessed to by the Spirit in the heart. It has both objective and subjective aspects, and both are essential.”[1] I believe that God is, and that he is positively disposed towards me regardless of my life circumstances. What looks like loss today will end up gain, not necessarily in this life, but in the world to come. Jesus instructs our minds and assures our hearts.

[1] Warren W. Wiersbe, With the Word Bible Commentary (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1991), Heb 11:1.

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Hebrews 11:16, John 14:2-3

Jesus is preparing a place for me!

Filed Under: Devotions by Chuck
March 3, 2020

Everything is beautiful in its time, according to Ecclesiastes 3:11. But it’s the second half of that verse that concerns me. The whole verse says, “He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart.” It’s that “eternity” in my heart that has always disrupted the here and now. All we know is that there is something more than what meets our physical eyes and there is an inbred yearning for it. I’m thinking that this is what the author of Hebrews is referring to in Hebrews 11:6.  Speaking of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the pilgrims in the Promised Land, it says, “But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one.” There is a longing in our hearts that transcends the physical realm in which we live.

But I agree that everything is beautiful in its time. I love my life and as I look back on it I remember all the good things of each era of my life. I loved growing up in North Omaha and fishing at Miller Park Lagoon. I even love many memories of my elementary school years at Blessed Sacrament school; report cards I was afraid to show, my paper route, washers, box hockey and tether ball at the Parks & Recreation department in the summers, the first kiss on the lips.  I even love those disruptive High School years at Holy Name where I felt unwanted and an outcast most of the time.  I love my year aboard the USS WRIGHT and the girl in Puerto Rico. I love my memories of the USS WALLER crossing the Atlantic, entering the Mediterranean Sea, transiting the Suez Canal and a thrilling port stop in Massawa, Ethiopia. I love the memories of the young blonde California girl who left her home and family to venture with me 3000 miles from home. I still love her! I love the fact that she followed me from California to South Carolina to Corpus Christi to Pearl Harbor, to Detroit, Michigan, back to Texas and finally back to Nebraska. I remember the Tonkin Gulf aboard the USS RATHBURNE and the years I spent in the Western Pacific away from her and the two beautiful boys God gave me. Even through the trials and hardships everything was beautiful in its time. Yep! I love my life! But I know there is something more. I yearn for it!

The rest of Hebrews 11:6 says, “Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.” William MacDonald writes, “This spirit of pilgrimage is especially pleasing to God. Darby writes, ‘He is not ashamed to be called the God of those whose heart and portion are in heaven.’ He has prepared a city for them, and there they find rest and satisfaction and perfect peace.”[1] I now turn my thoughts to Jesus. In John 14:2-3 He says, “In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.” Yes, everything may be beautiful in its time, but there is nothing like an eternal home where we find rest, satisfaction and perfect peace!

[1] William MacDonald, Believer’s Bible Commentary: Old and New Testaments, ed. Arthur Farstad (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1995), 2197.

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Hebrews 11:14-15, John 8:56-58

Jesus is my home!

Filed Under: Devotions by Chuck
March 3, 2020

Michael Buble, Johnny Cash, John Denver, Van Morrison, Tom Jones, Bobby Bare and Mel Tillis are just some of the singers who sang songs with the line “I wanna go home! I wanna go home! Lord, how I wanna go home!” Whenever I hear a song like that, I think about my childhood days in north Omaha where I lived with my dear ole’ papa and momma, sister and brother from 1947 to 1961. After retiring from the Navy in 1991, I’ve returned to my home area and will occasionally drive through the old neighborhood. The streets are still laid out the same. Most of the same houses are still there and many of the old trees are still standing. But every time I drive through the neighborhood, I’m reminded that it’s not the same. Butch and Suzie are not playing in the yard across the street from me anymore. Only strangers’ faces is all I see. But they all know each other and the only alien there is me. I’m the stranger! Tom Wolfe and many others are right “you can never go home again.” But there remains an aching in my heart for home. But it’s not a place in time and space. It’s a situation of love, peace, joy and contentment.

Abraham, Isaac and Jacob lived as aliens in the world with an aching in their hearts for home. But they knew it wasn’t a physical place but a place that God would build that would transcend the physical and would reside eternal. In Hebrews 11:14-15 we read, “For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return.” Isn’t that what the aching for home is really all about? Bill MacDonald writes, “Faith implanted a homing instinct in them which was never satisfied by the delights of Canaan. There was always a yen for a better land which they could call home.”[1] Faith implants in us also a homing instinct. We all know that there is something missing.

In John 8:56-58, Jesus says to the religious leaders, “‘Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad.’ So the Jews said to him, ‘You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?’ Jesus said to them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.’” I believe that Abraham rejoiced to see Christ’s day in the dim distance. Jesus is the home Abraham, Isaac and Jacob longed for. Jesus is the home we all long for.  Long writes, “This sense of incompletion, the sadness of an unfinished journey, yearns for resolution. Are we simply left with a heartbreaking tale of faithful pilgrims who journeyed in faith but who never arrived at their cherished destination? No, we have a God who keeps promises, a God who sent another pilgrim, the heavenly Son, whose journey of faith led him into the valley of human suffering, into the place where Abraham and all who share his hope were perishing before coming to the end of the road. This pioneer made perfect through suffering (2:10) gathered up Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Jacob, and all who trust him, and takes them home to the distant city, saying to God, ‘Here am I and the children you gave me’ (2:13).’”[2]

[1] William MacDonald, Believer’s Bible Commentary: Old and New Testaments, ed. Arthur Farstad (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1995), 2197.

[2] Thomas G. Long, Hebrews, Interpretation, a Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching (Louisville, KY: John Knox Press, 1997), 119.

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Hebrews 11:13, 12:2, 2 Corinthians 4:18

Looking to Jesus!

Filed Under: Devotions by Chuck
March 3, 2020

Abraham and Sarah, as well as the others mentioned earlier in Hebrews chapter 11, did not see God’s promises fulfilled in their lifetimes. They did see the miraculous birth of their son Isaac but the ultimate promise of descendants as numerous as the grains of sand on the beach or the stars in the sky was something they would not witness in their lifetime. Further, none of the Patriarchs – Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob – would receive the promise of possession of the Promised Land. Yet, they had an understanding of them to some extent and by faith held on to their reality. Hebrews 11:13 says, “These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.”

God’s promises to believers today in Jesus won’t be realized in this life either. The prosperity theology that pervades US Television flies in the face of Biblical theology. The author of Hebrews as well as the rest of the Bible affirms the fact that we live in a fallen world during which time we do not have a permanent home and the promises from God are yet future in another realm. Don’t expect wealth, happiness, contentment, peace, joy, kindness, goodness or any of the fruits of the spirit to become full grown in our lives or in the lives of those around us as long as we’re in our flesh. All the things in this world are temporary anyway! 2 Corinthians 4:18 confirms this thought, “…we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.”

This seems to affirm that the saints in the Old Testament held firmly to the reality of an afterlife in which all of God’s promises would be fulfilled. Steadman says, “Such inner fulfillment is the gift of faith to those who today are willing to look beyond death to God’s day of perfect fulfillment. We cannot demand instant answers from God for all our earthly problems, but we can welcome them from a distance. We must not lose faith that God will satisfy every promise.”[1] Another commentary says, “Christians join the patriarchs in this feeling of anticipation. This world is not our home. We are looking for ‘the city that is to come’ (13:14), ‘the kingdom that cannot be shaken’ (12:28). In their early days of faith the readers had held their possessions of this world very lightly (10:32–34).”[2] We should too! We find our only recourse today is to keep our eyes on Jesus. The author of Hebrews will conclude with that thought in Hebrews 12:2. It says, “…looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.”

[1] Ray C. Stedman, Hebrews, The IVP New Testament Commentary Series (Westmont, IL: IVP Academic, 1992), Heb 11:8.

[2] James Girdwood and Peter Verkruyse, Hebrews, The College Press NIV Commentary (Joplin, MO: College Press, 1997), Heb 11:13.

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Hebrews 11:12

The Promised Son is Jesus!

Filed Under: Devotions by Chuck
February 28, 2020

Hebrews 11:12 concludes the focus on Abraham and Sarah. It says, “Therefore from one man, and him as good as dead, were born descendants as many as the stars of heaven and as many as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore.” As many descendants as stars in the sky and as many descendants as grains of sand on the beach were the two promises God gave to Abraham personally in Genesis. These descendants would come through the one and only legitimate son, Isaac! That birth was to be a miraculous one! It had to be that way so no human could claim a part in its fulfillment. It was fully satisfied by what God did alone!

There was nothing that Abraham and Sarah could have done to bring that about. They probably tried everything they could think of to conceive. It seemed that, although they believed God, they still felt they had to do something to help Him fulfill His promise of an heir. In Abraham’s life we see he tried to understand God’s promise of an heir as referring to his servant Eleazar, but God said it wouldn’t be him. Then he tried to assign that role to his nephew Lot and God said “no” again. He then worked with Sarah to bring Ishmael into the world as Abraham’s heir and God corrected that mistake also. It seems as though Abraham and Sarah believed God but still felt they had to help Him. The fulfillment of God’s promise and Isaac’s conception had nothing to do with the obedience or “works” of either of his parents. It had solely to do with the faithfulness of God to keep His promise. It was “by faith” as noted frequently in Hebrews chapter 11 but it wasn’t the quality of their faith that mattered. It was the object of their faith: God, Himself!

It had to be a miraculous birth because the story is about Jesus. You would think that the Jews, as a nation, would have caught that connection since Isaac was the “promised one” and Jesus was the ultimate “promised one.” The KJV Bible Commentators observe, “The whole Jewish nation is the product of a miracle birth. The Messiah, of whom Isaac was a type, would also be the product of a miraculous birth (Isa 7:14; Mt 1:18–25). More than anyone else, a Jew ought to be able to accept the supernatural birth of Jesus; for he himself is the result of Isaac’s miraculous birth.”[1] Several other commentators have observed, “Countless descendants of Abraham formed the nation Israel. And through Abraham all nations on earth were blessed (Gen. 12:3; Gal. 3:8). But more significantly, Abraham’s descendants ultimately are all believers (Rom. 9:6–8; Gal. 3:7–9, 16, 29; 4:28). All believers in Christ call Abraham their father, for in effect, the promised Son is the Christ, not Isaac.”[2] It’s not unusual for believers today to do the same thing that Abraham and Sarah did. We often feel we need to contribute something for God to be faithful to His promises given us through faith alone in Christ Jesus alone! But it is miraculous and there is nothing we can do to add to it! But God is not looking for a sacrifice from us. He’s looking for us to trust in Him. Hacking says, “Abraham’s supreme test was on a mountain top not far from where Calvary stood (vv. 17–19). There he offered back his son, a moving story where faith and love battled hard. In the event, Isaac was not sacrificed, but a ram took his place, another of those biblical signposts towards the cross.”[3]

[1] Edward E. Hindson and Woodrow Michael Kroll, eds., KJV Bible Commentary (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1994), 2572.

[2] Simon J. Kistemaker and William Hendriksen, Exposition of Hebrews, vol. 15, New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1953–2001), 325.

[3] Philip H Hacking, Opening up Hebrews, Opening Up Commentary (Leominster: Day One Publications, 2006), 74.

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