Among the elders attested in virtue of faith Abraham has a most honorable place. Of him first is it written in the O. T. that he believed [in] Jehovah, and He counted it to him for righteousness; and in the N. T. he is called father of all that believe; in both, the “friend of God.”
Abraham gives occasion to a large and varied scope of faith, and stands at the head of those who illustrate its patience, rather than its energy which shines in Moses and those that follow. And this is the true moral order: first, waiting on God who had promised; secondly, overcoming difficulties and dangers in His power.
“By faith Abraham, being called, obeyed to go out into a place which he was to receive for an inheritance; and he went out, not knowing where he was going. By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as one not his own, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the joint-heirs of the same promise; for he awaited the city that hath the foundations, whose artificer and maker [is] God” (Heb. 11:8-108By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went. 9By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise: 10For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God. (Hebrews 11:8‑10)).
Abraham is the first sample of God's call as a public principle. Whatever the secret working of grace in all the saints heretofore, as in Abel, Enoch, Noah, no one had ever been called by God to quit his country, kindred, and even father's house, as Abraham was. It was the great and new fact of separation to God, and in a land which He would show, sustained by His promise of blessing to himself, yea of blessing in him to all the families of the earth. It was the more remarkable, because after the deluge He had instituted government to repress evil; and in the days of Peleg the earth was divided by the sons of Japheth, Ham, and Shem, after their families and tongues, in their lands and nations. In Abraham's time even Shem's progeny served other gods—an evil most portentous, and unknown before the deluge. Out of this was Abraham called of God. The rest of the world was left to itself. God called the man of His choice, not to attack or reform the evil, but to Himself and a land He would show him, with blessing assured. Separation to God on the call of His grace we see in the man, the family, the nation in which He will be magnified forever.
This, if believed, involved obedience at once; and so it is here written. The old relationships remained for all but Abraham, the sphere of divine providence, as of judgment at the end of the age.
But the separated man was to follow as God in grace led. He is the depositary of promise, and thus his faith was tested, not at the start only, but continuously. The land to be shown in due time was as yet unknown, so as to cast him on simple-hearted confidence in God. He went out, in subjection to God's promise, not knowing whither he went. God would show the next step when Abram took the first. He did not ask, Whither? He trusted God implicitly. Thus his faith was unmixed with calculations of self, resting solely but fully on His word Who loves and never deceives.
It was the wise and wonderful working by ways suited to His glory in a world departed from God into idolatry, where present ease, wealth, honor, power, are the bribes of the enemy for all misled by him. Faith gives up all at God's word with not one thing gained for the moment, but the certainty of His guidance and ultimate blessing in the richest manner. Yet in the history of Genesis it was not faith unmixed: in Haran they halted till Terah died; then “they went forth into the land of Canaan, and into the land of Canaan they came.” The Canaanite too, the power of evil devoted to God's curse, was still in the land while Abraham moved about a stranger. Even after this, faith failed under pressure of famine, and Canaan was left for the plenty of Egypt, and the denial of his wife through fear, and the treasures of the world which followed. But God was faithful, judged the prince of the world, and brought back the pilgrim to the land he ought not to have left without His word Who had brought him there.
But Heb. 11:99By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise: (Hebrews 11:9) points out a fine and new trait of the Spirit's working. “By faith he sojourned [not in Egypt, but] in the land of promise, as in one not his own, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the joint-heirs of the same promise; for he awaited the city that hath the foundations, whose artificer and maker [is] God.” As faith led him into the land, unnamed and unknown to him, so when in it faith not only looked to have it another day from God, while he was content to be an alien without a foot of it as yet, but learned to await a brighter and better scene. For the city here described stands in contrast with all that is earthly or can be shaken and removed. It is the scene of heavenly glory. Compare Heb. 11:1616But now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city. (Hebrews 11:16), and Heb. 12:2222But ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, (Hebrews 12:22). The word he heard gave him to look up; and believing he made no haste nor shall he be ashamed. Returned from Egypt he has his tent, as had Isaac and Jacob in due time. What did Egypt know of the tent? still less of the altar unto Jehovah. Even the called-out man had neither there: back in the land he has both. The spirit of the world is incompatible with either strangership or worship. And both helped him to draw, from His word Who is now before his soul, higher things than those he saw, more durable than the earth, and more worthy of Him Who devised and executed the universe but is above it all. “The God of glory,” as Stephen says of him, became far better known than at the first. Abraham walked by faith, not by sight. Men have not been wanting to say that the city which God here designs and forms is the earthly Jerusalem. It is impossible to conceive an idea less spiritual or more ruinous of the truth intended. The Epistle as a whole assiduously raises the eyes of those addressed to the city out of sight and on high, which Abraham saw by faith and was glad. Here we have no continuing city, whatever the Jews may receive by-and-by.