Hebrews 11:13-14 These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them… "Wherefore they are not to be heard," says the seventh article of our Church, "which feign that the old fathers did look only for transitory promises." It is well known that in all ages of the Church there have been men who have taken this unworthy view of Old Testament theology-believing that the saints of the Old Testament did look for transitory promises, and nothing else. On what ground have they come to such a conclusion? Well, they took down the Books of Moses; they searched them from beginning to end; and what did they find there? Anything about heaven? Anything about hell? Anything about a great scheme of retribution, such as we have brought before us in the parables of our Lord, or in the writings of St. Paul? No, they found nothing of this. They saw that rewards were temporal, that punishments were immediate; the whole economy of moral government seemed to be constructed only upon present recompenses, limited to the present life, and never pointing at any other. Now if these objectors had taken the pains to understand the genius of Old Testament teaching, or the nature and design of Old Testament types — if they had mastered the simple fact which every devout Jew well understood, that the dispensation under which he lived was to be succeeded by another — this their difficulty would have vanished. For then they would have seen that the land of Canaan, the great subject of Old Testament promise, was a declared and understood type of the heavenly city. They would have understood further that all the historical antecedents of the Jewish people were typical also. Their wilderness wanderings were to be a type of man's life to the end of time. Their warfare in the desert was an emblem of man's constant struggles with the power of evil. Their redemption from Egypt was a sign of man's deliverance from the bondage of sin: and their settlement in the good land shadowed forth the blessedness and repose of heaven. Hence you will observe, that in the chapter before us, the apostle does not hesitate to attribute to all the children of faith under the Old Testament an insight into the spiritual purposes of God. He supposes them to understand that a great scheme of pictorial truth was being brought before their eyes, even in the facts of their external history. They dwelt in tents because they knew there were mansions in store for them. They knew that there was to be a more complete development of God's purpose. They knew that His promises were to have a spiritual fulfilment. They saw the day of Christ afar off. They were persuaded of all the blessings promised to them in and through Him: they embraced these promises. Thus while in possession of those temporal privileges, which God in His mercy had vouchsafed unto them, they learned to sit loosely to them, because they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. I. THE IMAGE WHICH IS HERE GIVEN US OF LIFE. Notwithstanding their possession of these outward advantages, the fathers confessed that they were "strangers and pilgrims on the earth." Other Scriptures express the same thought (Psalm 39:12; 1 Peter 2:11). 1. Such an idea of life would be suggested by the very nature of the human constitution, and the relation in which we stand to the world around us; for everything in that world will be found to suggest the conclusion of this being a passage world, and not a resting world. For this world cannot satisfy those higher instincts with which God has endued us. 2. Such an idea of life would be suggested by its constant changeableness and instability. The strange admixture of good and evil which we experience in our passage through life is no chance arrangement. Our world seems to be evidently arranged upon the principle that we should have so much of good in our lot as to enable us to bear the evil, and yet so much of evil commingled therewith that our hearts may not be unduly set upon the good. Now, all this exactly answers to the pilgrim's condition. 3. The text would suggest to us an infinite and everlasting existence; for he that is a stranger in a country has another country which he calls his own; and he that is a pilgrim has a place and destination towards which he is hastening. II. PRACTICAL LESSONS SUGGESTED BY SUCH A VIEW OF LIFE. 1. The duty of contentment — the duty of acquiescence in that lot which God has appointed for us, whether it be fixed here or there — a holy indifference whether, in the arrangements of the social household, we be set down in a higher or a lower room. 2. Reference should be constantly had to Divine guidance and direction. We are not pilgrims only, says the apostle, but strangers. Now, the stranger in a strange land does not know his way. Misled by delusive appearances, he may take a way which seemeth right unto him, "but the end thereof are the ways of death." He takes one path for its smoothness, and he finds that it is beset with perils and hidden snares; he takes another path for its shortness, and afterwards finds that he has but gone so far out of the way. Oh! how wisely does the prophet remind us, "The way of man is not in himself. It is not in man that walketh to direct his steps!" 3. The duty of exercising in all things a holy moderation and sobriety. The patriarchs might have lived in tents in Chaldea, or they might have lived in palaces in Canaan, but they would not have palaces, and they would not return to Chaldea. Why? Because these tents were designed of God to be a standing protest against a worldly spirit, even as Canaan itself was also to be an emblem of the spiritual and eternal state. They kept to their tents because they would testify to the simplicity of the patriarchal character, because they would witness against the pride, the covetousness, and the ostentation too often found to accompany a season of prosperity. And thus we are to "let our moderation be known unto all men." Be sober in your joys, sober in your griefs, sober in your gains, sober in all the pursuits of life. 4. Having no continuing city here, being strangers and pilgrims upon the earth, we should seek one to come. The patriarchs had no home in Canaan, and yet they loved it. Why? It was not the fertility of its valleys, nor the beauty of its hills, nor the wealth of its fig-trees, nor the luxuriousness of its vines, that made them love the land in which they were strangers. It was because Canaan was typical of the rest of the covenant. It was because it was the place where God had promised to honour and meet and bless His people. It was because it was associated in their minds with the most inspiring tokens of the Divine presence, as well as all their most lofty anticipations of the life of the world to come. (D. Moore, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. |
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