According to Hebrews 11:8 God called Abraham to leave the place where he lived and go to another place, which he would inherit later. Specifically, Abraham was called by the Lord to leave his father’s house to go to a country that the Lord would show him (Genesis 12:1-4). In other words, it doesn’t appear that Abraham knew what land that would be. Abraham obeyed God (Hebrews 11:8) and left the land where he dwelt, and his father’s house, just as the Lord had commanded. The Lord also promised a reward for Abraham’s obedience. Abraham would become a great nation, would be a blessing to all nations, and the Lord would protect him (Hebrews 11:8; Genesis 12:1-4). However, it wasn’t until Abraham actually arrived in the land of Canaan that God specifically promised to give that particular land to his descendants (Genesis 12:7).
Paul went on to tell us that Abraham and those after him, Isaac and Jacob, lived in the Land of Promise as pilgrims (Hebrews 11:9). That is, they were in the land, but they didn’t try to take any part of it from the Canaanites. Even though God blessed them enough to cause concern and fear among those with whom they dwelt (Genesis 21:26-27; 26:15-22). How should we understand these things in the context of the Gospel?
First century AD Jewish believers were called by Christ to separate themselves from unbelieving Jews (Acts 2:40; 2Corinthians 6:17), so they wouldn’t take part in their judgment (Revelation 18:4). That is to say, they were to leave Judaism (where they dwelt) and come into Christ (the “land” of promise; Matthew 11:28; John 6:37; Revelation 22:17). At first, they didn’t know where their journey would take them, but it was revealed later that all their inheritance lay in Christ (Ephesians 1:3, 10-11). The Gospel that they preached reached out to include even the gentiles, so all nations were blessed in their journey into Christ (Galatians 3:6-9, 14). Finally, unbelieving Jews became very concerned over how God had blessed their believing countrymen. Although unbelieving Jews couldn’t refute the claims of the Gospel, nor did they have an adequate reply to it, but they condemned it, and they persecuted their brethren from city to city for embracing Christ (Acts 6:8-12), even as the Lord foretold (Matthew 23:34; Acts 14:1-2, 5-6, 19).
As Abraham walked with the Lord and witnessed how the Lord had blessed him in the Land, which he didn’t possess, he began to look for a city that had foundations, whose builder and maker was God (Hebrews 11:10). Since the Lord promised Abraham that he would inherit the land of Canaan (Genesis 17:8), but never gave him even a foot of that land (Acts 7:5), then it is logical to assume there is more to the promise of God than is understood at face value. Clearly, Abraham perceived there was more to the Lord’s promise than what he saw, because we’re told he looked for a city that had foundations (Hebrews 11:10, 16).
No physical city has foundations, and no physical city was ever built by God. Jesus tells us that Abraham saw the days of Jesus and rejoiced (John 8:56). In other word, he saw the days of salvation, the days of eternal life, the days of a city, whose very walls are called Salvation (Isaiah 26:1; 60:18; cp. Galatians 3:8, 16). This is not a physical city, even its foundations tell us that (Revelation 21:14). How are twelve men able to be the foundations of a physical city? How could a physical city have Salvation for its walls? Therefore, if these things should be spiritually understood, certainly, we can perceive God as being the builder of such a city (see Psalm 102:14-22; 110:2; Isaiah 2:2-3; Hebrews 12:22).
Paul characterized Sarah as faithful. She believed God that he would keep his promise to her even though she was past the age of delivering children (Hebrews 11:11). In effect Paul reminds his Jewish readers that God had caused a nation that no one could number to arise from one man and that out of a womb as good as dead (Hebrews 11:12). This is a picture of salvation, of the believer passing into life out of death (John 5:24; 1John 3:14), which is a spiritual rather than a physical resurrection (Ephesians 2:1, 5). In other words the physical life that sprung from Sarah’s dead womb into a nation that couldn’t be numbered was a picture or a shadow of the spiritual resurrection that would occur in Christ—his saving us from our sins wherein we had been dead and giving us eternal life, which we did not naturally possess.
Paul concluded that all the preceding patriarchs mentioned died, not having received the promises (Hebrews 11:13).[1] All, believing what the Lord had promised, looked for a country (G3968) that was promised them. Clearly, the Land of Israel was not promised to Able, Enoch or Noah, which means, if they looked for a country (G3968), which the Lord had promised, neither was the Land of Israel what Abraham looked for, because the context implies they looked for the same country. The word country (G3968) in the text means one’s father land or a home or one’s native city.[2] Abraham could have gone back to Mesopotamia, and Able, Enoch and Noah could have given in to the pressures of their enemies and ceased following the Lord. Therefore, the Land was a spiritual country, whose city walls were salvation (Isaiah 26:1; 60:18), and whose foundations were 12 men (Revelation 21:14). No physical city on earth was ever described in such a manner.
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[1] This includes Enoch, whom many have wrongly concluded didn’t die but was taken by God into heaven, directly contradicting the scriptures (Hebrews 9:27; John 3:13).
[2] See Thayer’s Greek Lexicon.
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