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It is evident that the words, "ye might receive the promise", indicate a long wait and a
patient endurance, by the conclusion of the matter in Heb. 11: 39:
"And these all, having obtained (received ? JP) a good report through faith, received
NOT the promise."
What does the apostle bring forward to encourage these tried and tested believers?
The Coming of the Lord.
The relation of the Coming of the Lord to the church of the Mystery has been dealt
with elsewhere, but it is here brought forward as the crowning argument in the writer's
testimony:
"For yet a little while, and He that shall come will come, and will not tarry. Now the
just shall live by faith: but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him.
But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition, but of them that believe to the
saving of the soul" (Heb. 10: 37-39).
No.44.
"The substance of things hoped for" (11: 1).
pp. 89 - 95
Chapter 10:, as we have seen, ends on the exhortation to live by faith. The words "we
are not of them who draw back unto perdition" imply the alternative, "we are of them
who go on unto perfection". In our last study we drew attention to the meaning of
perdition when set over against perfection. To live by faith is evidently very closely
allied with perfection, and in chapter 12: comes the exhortation to run with patience,
`looking unto Jesus, the Author and Perfecter (teleiotes) of faith."
For those who have a desire to "go on unto perfection", here in Christ is the supreme
Example. Even as we say the words, however, we are conscious of a great gulf between
the Lord and ourselves. It is just here that Heb. 11: so wonderfully fits in and comes to
our aid. In this chapter, living by faith is subdivided for us, and we see one phase in one
example, and another phase in another, and are gently led on to contemplate the Perfecter
Himself in Whom all faith was resident in its fullness.
Light from the works of God.
It will be profitable for us to turn aside for a moment from the written Word that we
may obtain help from an analogy in the works of God. The light of the sun untinted by
the atmosphere through which it comes is pure white. If falling rain or water-mist
intercepts the rays of sunlight, we have the phenomenon called the rainbow. We have all
seen with pleasure in our childhood the colours of the rainbow caused by a decanter of
water standing on a white table-cloth, or by the prism-shaped pendant ornaments that our
grandparents had upon the mantle-shelf. These are but demonstrations of the fact that