Hebrews 11:10 Commentary and Bible Study

A city fashioned by God – this eternal city is mentioned several times in the Letter to the Hebrews. A city, a heavenly place, a glory beyond human design. If you die before the end of the world and you love Christ, you go immediately into paradise. You leave your body behind; you are just a spirit without a body – this is the teaching of the Scripture – but you are recognisable somehow. You see Christ and the angels, and you fellowship with all those who love the Lord who have gone before you. Even though it is an immaterial place, a spiritual realm, it is a place of astonishing beauty and delight. There is no sin there, but only knowledge and happiness, peace and glory. Yes, but at the end of time when Christ returns, and this present world order is destroyed, then the earth will be remade and rejuvenated remarkably, and heaven will be joined to earth, and earth will be joined to heaven, and earth will perhaps be made much, much larger and infinitely more glorious. There will be wonders to be seen, and we shall receive our glorified resurrection bodies: there is a physical future for the people of God. The spirit will no longer be alone, but clothed upon with a glorified body, and we cannot imagine the splendours of that new order. But this is the eternal city, which Abraham looked forward to. He looked forward to, or he expected, ‘a city which hath foundations’. The Greek suggests something put in place, but, in this case, by God, not by man. When are due to inherit, you look forward to something you didn’t have to build. You don't have to lay the bricks; you don't have to do anything towards it. Just as salvation is by grace, so the eternal city comes to all the Lord's people. It is given by grace. By the mercy and kindness of God, ‘he looked for a city which hath foundations’ – absolute security, designed and fashioned by God. Breath-taking in every way, so varied, colours we know nothing about, materials we know nothing about, a perspective beyond anything we can imagine on earth, and we the inhabitants will be so beautiful in character and in being. It is a wonderful thing as a believer in Christ. Though we have our troubles with each other because sin is still with us, though we can still be selfish and mean, though there can be unkind words and friendships temporarily fractured, yet we see a token of heaven in each other. Don’t you know Christians in your fellowship, who you would like to be with; they seem to be models of kindness, wisdom, and unselfishness. No doubt they have their sins too, but there is nobody like that at the office, and there is nobody quite like that in your college. There is something different about Christians, people you can love and identify with and appreciate. They have cheer, they have integrity, they have this friendliness, they have humility or they strive for it. When we enter either the paradise of Christ or the eternal glorified earth, the people we shall mix with will be perfect in integrity and friendliness, and above all worshippers and lovers of the living God.It was an agrarian society. You tilled your fields; you fought against the weeds and in many places the dust storms. You did everything you could to irrigate to keep the plants growing and the cattle fed; it had to be done by the sweat of your brow. In a farming community the dirt gets in everywhere, and everything is comparatively rustic and simple, and so the vast majority of the people in Israel looked in wonder at the city. Our capital city with its rising towers and its beautiful walls: that is a place of amazing sophistication. That is a place of wealth untold, a place of cleanliness, a place where the food is taken in and gathered and cooked, a place of delicacies and delight. There is the presence of the king of our country, and if you line the streets you see him from time to time with his retinue and his majesty. It is in this context that the city is used as a metaphor for eternal glory, a place where we see the King of kings, a place where you find the university, the high protective walls of the city meant security and safety.