pure white light is made up of the three primary colours, red, yellow, and blue, and these

mingling form the secondaries, orange, green, and violet. For reasons the explanation of

which lies outside the scope of this book, the actual spectrum or rainbow is found to

contain bands of seven colours, always in the following order: red, orange, yellow,

green, blue, indigo and violet.

All colour in nature is dependent upon the fact that sunlight contains in itself the

whole range of colour that exists. The red rose is called red because the petals have the

power of absorbing the blue and the yellow rays of light, and throwing back to our eye

the red. A leaf is green because it lays hold upon the red rays and throws back the blue

and the yellow. A white chalk cliff throws back all the rays, while a black felt hat retains

all the rays. Hence, a white dress is cooler than a black one as the light and heat rays are

in measure treated alike. Now it is not our intention to attempt to give a discourse upon

the spectrum, wonderful though that may be, but to use the spectrum as an illustration of

the place of Heb. 11:

The pure white light of the sun, as representing perfect light, composed of the perfect

number of colours, will represent Christ, as set forth in Heb. 12: 2.  Heb. 11: will then

represent the prism of glass which has the power of splitting up the perfect light of the

sun, and so will split up the perfect faith of Christ, and focus a ray of each colour, as it

were, upon one or more examples, enabling us to see the better the sevenfold splendour

of the perfection of faith in Christ, after having seen the seven aspects of it separately in

the lives of others.

Before we go further we must make certain that there are these sets of "sevens",

and so taking nothing for granted we begin to count, (1) Abel, (2) Enoch, (3) Noah,

(4) Abraham, (5) Isaac, (6) Jacob, and (7) Sarah. Here the record comes to an end

for a time, while verses 12-16 speak of the pilgrim character of faith. It will be observed

that a woman ends the series. We commence counting again in verse 17, (1) Abraham,

(2) Isaac, (3) Jacob, (4) Joseph, (5) Moses, (6) Israel, and (7) Rahab. We have

another set of seven, again ending with a woman. In verse 32 the apostle says that time

would fail to tell of all that could be brought forward, but nevertheless the apparently

haphazard list that is assembled in this verse still presents the spectrum, (1) Gideon,

(2) Barak, (3) Samson, (4) Jephthae, (5) David, (6) Samuel, and (7) the prophets.

The seven-fold division of Heb. 11: being an established fact, we can now proceed to

a further examination. How are these lists related to each other? It seems to be a

Scriptural principle that truth is confirmed by two or more witnesses. Believing this to be

the case, we approached the double list of names that are mentioned in detail, and found

that they were arranged in pairs. For example, Abel and Enoch are both connected with

The next pair, Noah and Abraham, are related to an inheritance: