Hebrews 11:39 Commentary and Bible Study

These all ‘obtained a good report through faith.’ It is actually the same term used in Hebrews 11:2, ‘For by it [by faith] the elders obtained a good report.’ The word translated report, in fact the whole phrase ‘a good report’, comes from the Greek word which we have in the English language ‘martyr’. ‘Having obtained a good’ – you could say – ‘martyrdom’, but they were not all martyrs. The Greek the word martyr means witness – ‘having obtained a good witness’, but this is a witness from God. They received a good report, a good witness from God. The elders and the prophets and all the heroes of faith were attested by God, so that the people knew that they were his servants and they knew that they had the power of God with them. People knew this because God put his witness upon their lives. ‘And these all, having obtained the witness of God through faith upon what they were doing’: that is what the term ‘good report’ means. Having given us this long list of faithful believers in Old Testament times, the writer again commends the age in which we live over and above any age before it, because in spite of their wonderful example to us of the same faith which we are to exercise, they did not have any advantage over the New Testament saints. They did not witness the age in which so many promises were fulfilled when God sent his only begotten Son into the world. That promise was to be fulfilled in New Testament times, with the great flood of New Testament light. We have the reality where they only had the shadow, and furthermore they were aware that they only had the shadow. Abraham, we have been told, ‘looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.’ He knew that city was not to be found on earth, and he would never be willing to exchange Jerusalem above for Jerusalem below, even if he had possessed it in his lifetime. But all true Christians – those with whom God has confirmed the new covenant – come not to ‘Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children’, for, ‘Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all’ (Galatians 4:25-26). Abraham rejoiced to see Christ’s day and was glad (John 8:56). Moses also gave Israel the symbols and figures of the ceremonial law but told them of a Prophet like him, a Prophet who would speak with God face to face, who they should listen to with the utmost attention (Deuteronomy 18:15). The prophets also spoke in terms of types and shadows and used Old Testament images to describe New Testament worship, language which could not be taken literally without absurdity (Zechariah 14:16). They waited eagerly for Christ to come and fulfil their prophecies in wonderful ways that they longed to see. Accordingly, Moses and Elijah appeared with Christ on the mount of transfiguration and ‘spake of his decease which he should accomplish at Jerusalem’ (Luke 9:31). They knew that he had not come to abolish the law and the prophets but to fulfil them, and that ‘they without us should not be made perfect.’