“By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God.” (Hebrews 11:8-10)
Think about that for a minute. Back in Abraham’s day there were no maps. There was no GPS. There were no hotels, no fast food places, no restaurants. There was nothing but endless miles of (for Abraham) completely unexplored territory, with no indication of what was coming up after the next hill. He didn’t have an address, or even a country as his destination, and he had absolutely no idea of how long his journey might be.
William Newell imagines the following conversation in his Hebrews Verse by Verse:
“If we had stopped Abraham’s caravan to question him, something like this would have been heard:
“‘Whence do you come?’ ‘From the land of Shinar.’ ‘Where are you going?’ ‘I do not know, but I am going to a land that I am to receive for an inheritance.’ ‘Who told you that you would find such a land?’ ‘The God Whose I am.’ At these replies, the world would shake its head and say, ‘This man has lost his mind!’”[1]
As often as we may have read this story of Abraham leaving his home to become a stranger in a foreign country, I would imagine most of us don’t truly understand what this meant for him. These quote from Craig Evans and Craig Bubeck’s John’s Gospel, Hebrews–Revelation should help us appreciate what Abraham faced, and what leaving home meant for his life:
“Both Greco-Roman and Jewish literature attest both to the importance of one’s native land to one’s sense of identity and to the trials that attended the foreigner and sojourner. …
“Those who lived outside their native land,… were often exposed to a loss of status as they became ‘resident aliens’ or ‘sojourners,’ and had but limited access to acquiring honor in the foreign land….
“Plutarch… gives evidence that to live away from one’s native land exposed one to reproach and dishonor on that very basis. Terms such as ‘exile,’ ‘immigrant,’ and ‘foreigner’ were cast out like insults. Plutarch himself might object to such a use of these terms, but it is more important to note that their use as insults was current and common in the first century a.d.
“Continuing to live as a stranger in a foreign land suggests that the foreigner has not been enfranchised in the new location, neither becoming a citizen nor acquiring the rights of citizens. This would leave a person in a vulnerable position.”[2]
Add to that the fact that Abraham lived the rest of his life in this “promised” land without owning a single bit of it, except the field of Machpelah he purchased from a Hittite as a place to bury Sarah. He never put up a single permanent dwelling, instead living in tents.
And yet, this was the land that God had promised to him as an inheritance! But it would be many years and many generations before Abraham’s descendants would actually lay claim to this land and establish their homes there.
Still, Abraham never lost faith in God, and as far as we know, he did not lose patience with God over this long wait. Why? It’s because he had his sights set on something far grander. In some way we cannot understand, in some way we are never told, God had made clear to Abraham that something more, something far greater, something far more precious, was in store for him. William MacDonald explains it this way:
“Why did Abraham hold such a light grip on real estate? Because he waited for the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God. He did not have his heart set on present, material things, but on the eternal. In the original there is a definite article before both city and foundations—the city and the foundations. In the reckoning of faith there is only one city worthy of the name and only one with sure foundations.
“God is the architect of this heavenly city, and He is its builder as well. It is the model city, without slums, polluted air, polluted water, or any of the other problems that plague our metropolitan centers.”[3]
We don’t know what God revealed to him about this city, this future destination. What we do know is that Abraham recognized at least on some level that he was just passing through this life.
The author of Hebrews probably intended this to be an encouragement to his audience. After all, as Donald Guthrie explains,
“There is something particularly attractive about a quality of faith which sees stability in other than material things. Abraham might have felt that the least that God could do was to allow him to build a city in the promised land for himself and his descendants, particularly in view of the considerable number of his attendants. But he had altogether different standards of value—a city whose foundations are utterly unshakeable.”[4]
We read a description of this city in Revelation 21-22. And we know that we too can look forward to this city, not our present earthly residence, as our final and eternal destination. This city which is “God’s dwelling place … among the people [where] he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God” (Revelation 21:3).
This city which “does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp” (Revelation 21:23).
Just like Abraham, we must always keep in mind that “This world is not my home, I’m just a-passing through!”[5]
Donald Guthrie, Hebrews, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1983), accessed at Logos.
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