Chapter 11 of Hebrews. New Russian translation

Yuri Vestel

The first verse of the 11th chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews is one of the frequently quoted biblical verses, because it gives, as it were, a definition of faith (“as if”, since this is still not a strict definition). In the Synodal Translation (hereinafter SP) it reads:

“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen.”

They usually quote in order to confirm or refute something; the quotation must be the support of some thought or even an entire theory (especially if the definition of fundamental concepts is cited). However, often the one who quotes this verse does not realize that it can hardly be so calmly used as the basis of anything. This is one of the difficult verses, so it would have to be interpreted first, and only then cited as evidence or justification for something else.

The difficulty lies in the Greek. a word that is translated in the SP as “realization.” We will now move on to its consideration, but first briefly about the second part of the definition: “confidence in the invisible” is an unsuccessful translation (these words are also often quoted separately from the first half of the verse), if only because in Russian, unlike Greek, “confidence ” has the same root as “faith,” but also because it is truly inaccurate. Below I will give more successful translation options for the corresponding Greek. the word elenkhos, which often means “conviction”, but here most likely means “discovery”, “proof” (but in this article I will not specifically analyze the translation of the second part of the verse and, accordingly, this word, since this is a special topic ).

How can we understand that faith is the fulfillment of things hoped for? Does this mean that faith accomplishes, i.e. embodies, makes the expected real? This agrees well with the words of Jesus Christ: “Have faith in God, for truly I say to you, if anyone says to this mountain, “Be taken up and thrown into the sea,” and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him. whatever he says” (Mark 11:23). This is also consistent with some examples of faith that the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews (modern scholars are sure that this is not the Apostle Paul, as has become tradition, and I will call him conventionally the Apostle) gives throughout the 11th chapter (especially: “by faith they fell walls of Jericho...").

In another translation, created under the editorship of the Russian Parisian theologian Bishop Cassian (Bezobrazov), our place reads like this:

“Faith is a firm belief in what we hope for, confirmation of what we do not see.”

Most Western translations are translated in a similar way. This, of course, is much clearer, but the meaning here differs significantly from what is said in the SP, so the natural question is which translation is closer to the original.

Church Slavonic translation (the so-called Elizabethan Bible, i.e. in the latest edition published under Empress Elizabeth):

“Now faith is the revelation of things hoped for, the proof of things not seen.”

The word “notification” means certification, reliability, firm confidence (Priest Gregory Dyachenko in his “Complete Church Slavonic Dictionary” gives it the meaning of implementation, personification, but this is groundless: in Phil. 1:7 and Heb. 6:16 it conveys Greek bebaiosis, assurance; in Col. 2:2, 1 Thess. 6:11, 10:22 it corresponds to the noun plerophoria, certainty, firmness; .

The Ostroh Bible gives virtually the same translation, using only dative cases rather than genitive ones: “... notice to those who trust, we bring reproof to those who are not seen.”

The problem with translating the first half of the verse is that the original uses very ambiguous Greek. a word well known from completely different theological contexts: hypostasis, or, as it entered the Russian language without translation, hypostasis. The entire verse is in Greek. sounds like this:

Estin de pistis elpidzomenon hypostasis, pragmaton elenkhos ou blepomenon.

Literally translated: “Faith is the hypostasis of that which is hoped for, the evidence of things unseen.” (Here and below, if the translation is not indicated, the translations of foreign language texts are mine.)

The word hypostasis, literally meaning: that which stands under something and hence support, support, has undergone a complex evolution and was used in different eras by different authors with very different meanings. Here we will dwell only on those three meanings of hypostasis that the exegetes and translators of the New Testament allow in this place of the Epistle to the Hebrews:

1) In philosophical literature, it meant essence as the existential basis of random, transient, changeable qualities or properties, as well as concrete being (existence, reality, reality, real presence) - in contrast, on the one hand, to appearance, appearance, imaginary, and also from the merely mental, imagined or named, and on the other hand, from the general, potential and abstract “being in general.” Etymologically (thanks to the final suffix -is), this word, as historian and philologist V.V. Bolotov pointed out, carries the meaning not only of the result, but also of the process: “subsistence”, which in some contexts also manifests itself for philosophical meanings, hence translations of this word as “realization”, “realization” (as we will see below, not only in the Synodal Translation of Hebrews 11:1). Subsequently, in triadology (the doctrine of the Trinity) of the Eastern Fathers of the Church of the 4th century onwards, hypostasis was identified with prosopon person, personality; Leontius of Byzantium and Rev. John of Damascus identified hypostasis with “atom”, i.e. “indivisible”, individual (or with Aristotle’s “first essences”). In Latin, hypostasis in the philosophical meaning was already conveyed by Seneca through his exact tracing paper substantia - essence, essence, being.

2) In Greek. historians (Polybius, Diodorus) hypostasis has a psychological meaning: determination, firmness, endurance, as well as firm intention, goal, plan (including building plan, structure) and also character, disposition, strong-willed attitude. All of the above can be compared with the philosophical semantics of this word, because all this is a certain solid support on which you can lean, solid ground from which you can push off, a starting position, a certain basic reality and reason.

3) In economic and legal papyri, hypostasis means documents guaranteeing ownership, as well as simply property, property, possession. James Moulton and George Milligan, in their Dictionary of Greek New Testament Vocabulary Illustrated by Papyri and Other Non-Literary Sources (1930), summarize the main idea behind the use of hypostasis in the papyri: "the idea of ​​something underlying apparent circumstances and guaranteeing future possession " Hence they propose the following translation of Heb. 11:1: “Faith is the title-deed of things hoped for.”

So we have three main groups of meanings in which hypostasis could be used in Heb. 11:1: (A) philosophical, or ontological: essence, reality, reality, and also fulfillment; (B) psychological: firmness, determination, intention, plan, intention; (B) legal: a document that guarantees ownership.

Existing translations implement all three possibilities in different ways:

(A) The Vulgate and King James Bible render hypostasis here by “substantia, substance”: “Now faith is the substance of that which is hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” One German translation (Elberfeld) understands it in the same way as the SP: “Faith is the realization (Verwirklichung) of what is hoped for, the revelation of what is not seen.” O. Sergius Bulgakov found one of the most successful options for conveying this group of meanings: “Faith is the presence of the expected and the evidence of the invisible.” Probably, the Ukrainian translation by Ivan Ogienko can also be included here: “And faith is the proof of the given, the proof of the untested,” although it can also be understood in the sense of group B.

B) In Luther's translation of hypostasis in Heb. 11:1 became “certain assurance”: “Now faith is certainty (feste Zuversicht) of things hoped for, and certainty of things not seen.” This is how most Western translations are translated, including, as we have seen, the Russian translation of Bishop. Cassiana.

C) The “legal” interpretation was proposed by the French so-called Jerusalem Bible (1955): “Faith is the guarantee (la garantie) of the objects of hope, the proof of an invisible reality.” So is Ukrainian. translation about. Ivan Khomenko: “Faith is the guarantee of what is believed, the proof of invisible speeches.”

In view of this significant difference in meaning, let us try to clarify the situation by turning to the use of hypostasis in the New Testament. It appears here 5 times - 2 times in 2 Corinthians (9:4 and 11:17) and 3 times in Hebrews (1:3, 3:14 and 11:1). From these passages Heb. 1:3 is understood by everyone almost the same, passages in 2 Cor. - in a close sense, and Heb. 3:14 and 11:1 are the subject of the greatest disagreement among translators and commentators.

In 2 Cor. hypostasis, according to most exegetes, has a decidedly psychological meaning (with some variations among different translators and commentators):

1) confidence; 3) firm intention, plan, goal; 2) boldness.

Heb. 1:3 represents an undoubtedly ontological (philosophical) use of hypostasis - essence, nature, being (Theodore Beza, the King James Bible and some others convey here persona, person - person, but this seems unjustified): “This, being the radiance of glory and the image of hypostasis His..." (SP); “The Son, being the radiation of glory and the imprint of His essence...” (Bishop Cassian); “In the glory and image of the essence of God...” (Ogienko); “Vin is a glimpse of his glory, an image of his essence...” (Khomenko); The Vulgate and some Western translations render hypostasis here as “substance”, Luther as “essence” (Wesen), others as “being”, “nature”, “essence”, “reality” (being, very being, essential being, nature, reality, essence). Further questions about the sense in which “essence” or “substance” should be understood here require separate discussion.

In Heb. 3:12–14 The Apostle, citing as an example the murmuring of the Israelites in the wilderness of Exodus, exhorts those who believed in Christ to remain faithful, so as not to fall away through unbelief and hardness of heart. Here the readings of the phrase eanper ten arkhen tes hypostaseos mekhri telous bebaian kataskhomen in translations and among commentators vary greatly: “For we have become partakers of Christ, if only we firmly preserve the life we ​​have begun to the end” (SP); “...if only the beginning of the essence (substantia) is kept firm until the end (Vulgate); “...if only we preserve the foundation of our firm confidence to the end” (Bishop Cassian) (so the King James Bible and a number of old Western translations); “...if we hold fast to the end the confidence that we had at the beginning” (Luther and many translations); ...if we maintain to the end the basic position we had at the beginning (William Lane, author of the commentary on Hebrews in the World Biblical Commentary series). Paul Ellingworth, author of Commentary on the Greek. text" of the Epistle (1993) proposes to understand he arkhe tes hypostaseos as "the confident frame of mind with which you began life in faith", Heinrich Dorrey (in a special philological study of this term, 1955) - as a way of thinking and initial position, chosen attitude, Helmut Koester in The Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, ed. G. Kittel - as “the reality of the presence of God in which the community resides.” The Greek Fathers of the Church (Chrysostom, Theodoret, Theophylact), based on the definition of faith in Heb. 11:1 as hypostasis, and here hypostasis was understood as faith. It is curious that in one manuscript in Heb. 3:14 instead of arkhen tes hypostaseos (beginning of hypostasis) it reads arkhen tes pisteos (beginning of faith). This understanding was reflected in the translation of Fr. Ivan Khomenko: “We have become participants in Christ, since we firmly hold our faith to the end, like the beginning.”

So, of the other two places in the Epistle to the Hebrews where hypostasis occurs, one uses it in a clearly ontological sense, and the other is not clear in this regard.

Now let's return to our place - Heb. 11:1. The Apostle exhorts his addressees to remain faithful to Christ in trials, referring to the prophet Habakkuk in Greek. translation of the Septuagint: “My righteous shall live by faith” (Heb. 10:37–38, Hab. 2:3–4). “We,” the Apostle continues, “are not people of retreat to destruction, but people of faith to gain the soul” (transl. Bishop Cassian) - and further follows Heb. 11:1.

First of all, we note that the Hebrew word ’emunah used by the prophet Habakkuk means fidelity, and not faith in our sense. It is clear that his constant Greek has the same meaning. the equivalent in the Septuagint and New Testament is pistis: non-speculative faith, i.e. not just accepting something as true, but loyalty, devotion. Hebrew root The word contains at its core the idea of ​​hardness, strength, strength, as well as hypostasis. Taking into account this roll call of root meanings (which the Greek-Jewish author of the Epistle could not help but know or feel), it can be argued that the words of the Apostle should mean something like: “faith is the firmness of the objects of hope” or “support, support of the objects of hope”, i.e. e. faith supports them, they rely on it. But the question inevitably arises: is this firmness (support, support) of a psychological or ontological nature? Objects of hope “rest” on faith in the sense that faith gives us a firm conviction of their real existence, or in the sense that in faith they actually acquire reality, actuality? In other words, is faith only a subjective certainty, no matter how firm and unshakable, or an objective reality itself?

Let us make a reservation right away that all the severity of this opposition is relevant and important for us, but not for a purely biblical worldview. The man of both the Old and New Testaments perceived faith both as deep personal conviction, but above all - as loyalty to the one in whom he believes. The epistemological-ontological problematics of Greek philosophy, especially in the Kantian critical formulation widespread in modern times, were unknown to people of biblical culture. The spontaneous “ontological credo” of a person of such a culture (as, indeed, of the “existential” type of personality of any culture and any era) is very simple: what a person believes in is what it is for him. The question of “objective” reality is not raised: reality depends on the strength of faith. In this sense, faith is truly the “realization” of what is believed. So if we were strictly within the Jewish (and more broadly, Middle Eastern) cultural zone, the question posed above would not make sense. However, it is impossible to indicate Jewish roots behind the term hypostasis (which was noted more than once by S. S. Averintsev). This means that we are dealing with one of the crossroads of two great world cultures - Jewish and Greek. And then our question is legitimate: should we understand hypostasis here in the ontological sense, as it was used by the Greek philosophers and as it is used in Heb. 1:3 (and according to some, in 3:14), or in the psychological, as it appeared among the Greek historians and in 2 Cor. (and, according to most translators and commentators, in Hebrews 3:14)?

To answer this question, first of all, let's look at how hypostasis was understood in Heb. 11:1 in ancient times. Even a superficial review of patristic and medieval interpretations is enough to see: all of antiquity understood hypostasis here unambiguously ontologically.

Here is the commentary of St. John Chrysostom: “Since the objects of hope seem invalid (anypostata [hypostasis]), faith gives them reality (hypostasis), or rather, does not give them, but is their essence (ousia). Thus, the resurrection (of the dead) has not yet arrived and does not exist in reality (en hypostasei [in hypostasis]), but hope realizes (= hypostasizes) it (hyphistesin auten) in our soul.”

Bl. Theodoret: “For through it (faith) we see the invisible, and for contemplating the objects of hope it becomes our eye, and as something accomplished it shows what has not happened.”

Icumenius: “Faith is the very reality and essence (he hypostasis kai ousia) of the objects of hope, and since what is hoped for remains invalid (anypostata) until it comes, faith becomes their essence and reality (ousia... kai hypostasis) , so that through faith they exist, are delivered and are present in some way.”

Bl. Theophylact: faith is “the endowment of essence with the not yet existing and the reality of the invalid (hypostasis ton me hyphestoton).”

The Western fathers, of course, also understood substantia here ontologically (the Latin term, unlike the Greek, leaves no other possibility). Likewise, all medieval interpretations adhere to an ontological understanding. A striking example of this is found in Dante. The poet answers. Peter, what is the essence of faith, interpreting Heb. 11:1 (traditionally attributing the text to the Apostle Paul, whom he calls figuratively the brother of the Apostle Peter):

“Since it has been given to me, so that I wash my faith

Confessed before the powerful champion,

Let me clearly develop my thought! -

I said. - How he told us about faith

Your brother, who with your help

He did not allow Rome to follow the wrong path,

She is the basis of desired things

And an argument for what is invisible to us;

I believe such an essence in her.”

And he: “You think irrefutably,

If I correctly understood the meaning in which it

They use it as a basis and as an imaginary argument.”

And I said to this: “Depth

Things revealed to me in the heavenly sphere,

For the lowly world it is so dark,

That there is their existence - in a single faith,

Become firmly a giver of hope;

Because of this, it is the basis in full.

It behooves us to conclude

From faith where knowledge has no power;

And one cannot help but call it an argument.”

(Paradise XXIV, 58–78. Translated by M. Lozinsky)

Dante renders substantia in Heb. 11:1 (he knows the Bible as the Vulgate) through sustanza, which Lozinski translates “ground”, although “essence” would be more accurate.

In the modern era, many exegetes and philologists have adhered to the ontological understanding of hypostasis in Heb. 11:1: A. Schlatter, J. Owen, B.F. Westcott, W. Lane, P. Ellingworth, Ceslas Spicq, M.A. Mathis, R. E. Witt, G. Dorrey, G. Köster, G. Herder, G. W. Hollander, W. Lane and others. However, many, mainly Protestant commentators of modern times and modern times adhere to psychological type interpretation - as confidence: G. Grotius, V. de Wette, A. Tolyuk, I. Ebrard, E. Rome, G. Alford, B. Weiss, E. Riggenbach, H. Windisch, Franz Delitzsch, W. Buchanan, etc. .

Helmut Koester summarized the history of the understanding of hypostasis in Heb. 11:1:

“When translating hypostasis here and in Heb. 3:14 Melanchthon advised Luther to transfer confidence. While all patristic and medieval exegesis here translated hypostasis as substantia and meant it in the sense of ousia [essence], Luther's translation introduces a completely new element into the understanding of Heb. 11:1. Faith is now seen as a personal, subjective belief. This interpretation almost completely determined Protestant interpretations of the passage, greatly influenced Roman Catholic exegesis, and acquired far-reaching influence. However, there is no doubt that this classical Protestant understanding is incorrect. The time came when the linguistic research of Mathis, Vit and Dorry made the abandonment of the traditional Protestant explanation inevitable. (...) It is very important that hypostasis and elenkhos do not describe faith, but determine the nature of the transcendent future, and they do this in the same way as Philo and the representatives of Neoplatonism when they talk about the reality and actuality of God and the world of ideas. In the unheard of bold formulation of Heb. 11:1 identifies faith with this transcendent reality: faith is the reality of the things of hope in exactly the same sense in which Jesus is called the kharakter - the imprint of the reality of the transcendent God in 1:3. One formulation is no less paradoxical than the other: the presence of the Divine reality is in one case found in the obedience of a suffering and dying person (cf. Heb. 5:7), and in the other in the faith of the community. But this is precisely the essence of the book of Hebrews. Only the work of this Jesus and only participation in this work (= faith) is not subject to the destruction of this merely figurative and illusory reality.”

So, if we accept the ontological interpretation, which personally seems preferable to me, I would propose the following translation of this verse:

Faith is the reality of what is hoped for, the evidence of what is not seen.

What does accepting this interpretation mean for understanding the essence of faith? In this interpretation, faith is no longer a psychological state, but a direct experience of an invisible reality, and so direct that faith and reality itself are identified. However, the essence of faith is a separate big question that should be devoted to a separate study.

The essence of faith and its examples in the person of the first patriarchs (1–7). Examples of faith from Abraham to Moses (8–22). Examples of faith during the time of Moses (23–31). Late time (32–40).

Hebrews 11:1. Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the assurance of things not seen.

The essence of faith lies primarily in the fulfillment of what is expected, and by this expected is meant the promised benefits of the future. In relation to the invisible, faith is the same as touch and direct contemplation in relation to the visible. “Faith is the contemplation of the implicit and leads to the same complete conviction in the invisible as in the visible. Just as it is impossible not to believe what is visible, so it is impossible to have faith when one is not convinced of the invisible just as much as of the visible. Objects of hope appear to have no reality, but faith gives them reality; so, for example, the resurrection has not yet happened and does not exist in reality, but hope makes it real in our soul” (Zlat.).

Hebrews 11:2. It bears witness to the ancients.

"Ancients" - Greek. πρεσβύτεροι - all the many great people of bygone times who were guided by faith and are models for our imitation.

Hebrews 11:3. By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that what is visible was made out of things that are visible.

“By faith we know” “How, he says, is it known that God created everything with a “verb”? Reason does not suggest this, and no one was there when this happened. Known by faith; this knowledge is a matter of faith. That’s why he said: “We understand by faith” (Zlat.). - “From the invisible came the visible” - in this phenomenon of the world from the realm of the invisible to the realm of the visible, one cannot help but note the special intentionality of God, so that the visible world would not arise from such phenomena that are essentially visible, but through the will of God, so that the origin of the world would be tangible only for faith.

Hebrews 11:4. By faith Abel offered God a better sacrifice than Cain; by it he received evidence that he was righteous, as God testified about his gifts; He still speaks with it even after death.

“The best sacrifice” - the most excellent, most worthy. “He did, says Chrysostom, a righteous deed, not seeing an example in anyone. In fact, who did he look at and honor God so much? On father and mother? But they insulted God for His benefits. On your brother? But he did not honor Him either. Thus, he himself did a good deed. And while he was worthy of honor, what does he get? Killed." - “By this he received a testimony that he was righteous” (cf. Gen. 4:4). “How else could it be testified that he is a righteous man? Fire, it says (in Scripture), came down and burned his victims. Instead of “the Lord looked upon Abel and his gifts,” one translator reads: and ignited. So, God testified in both words and deeds that he is a righteous man” (Zlat.). - “Even after death he still speaks with it.” “In order not to lead them to despair, the apostle shows that Abel received part of the reward. Which? The fact that they remember a lot about him... his brother killed him, but did not kill his glory and honor with him... This is a sign of life when everyone glorifies, extols and pleases; convincing others to be righteous, of course, is a “verb”. It is not so much the word that acts as its suffering. Just as the sky, becoming only visible, “verbs,” so he, being remembered” (Zlat.).

Hebrews 11:5. By faith Enoch was translated so that he did not see death; and he was no more, because God had translated him. For before his migration he received a testimony that he pleased God.

Hebrews 11:6. And without faith it is impossible to please God; for he who comes to God must believe that He exists and is a rewarder of those who seek Him.

“He (Enoch) showed faith greater than Abel’s... Although he lived after Abel, what happened to Abel could turn him away from virtue... Abel revered God, and God did not deliver him. What is the benefit to the deceased from the fact that his brother is punished?.. Enoch did not say or think anything like that, but left it all, knowing that if there is a God, then without a doubt there is also a rewarder, although at that time they still knew nothing about the resurrection... "(Zlat.).

“The resettlement of Enoch took place soon, at the very beginning, so that humanity would have hope for the end of death, for the destruction of the power of the devil... He first allowed death to strike the righteous, wanting to frighten his father with his son. To show that His definition remains in full force, He immediately subjected this punishment not to evil people, but even to those who pleased Him, that is, blessed Abel; and soon after he brought Enoch away alive. He did not resurrect the first, so that people would not indulge in carelessness, but he resettled the last alive; Abel frightened him, and Enoch inspired him with zeal to please Him” (Zlat.).

“Many ask where Enoch was relocated and why he was relocated, why he did not die, and not only he, but also Elijah, and if they live, then how they live and in what condition. But asking about this is completely unnecessary. Scripture said that the first was translated, and the last was taken up (to heaven), but where they exist and how they exist, this was not added, because it does not say anything other than what is necessary” (Zlat.).

“Before his migration he received a testimony that he pleased God.” Thus, according to the apostle, even before the transfer, pleasing God in Enoch had eloquent expression and confirmation - obviously, throughout the entire life of this righteous man; at the same time, the apostle concludes that at the root of this pleasing there must certainly be faith - the living principle of any pleasing to God. The second half of verse 6 defines the objects of faith (that God “is” and that He is a “giver”) with the express desire to provide comfort and exhortation to the patience of the readers. This is what made Enoch happy that he received nothing. He knew that God is a rewarder; but tell me where from? After all, Abel had not yet received retribution. Thus, reason suggested one thing, and faith the opposite of what was visible. So you too, he says, if you see that you are not receiving any reward here, do not be embarrassed” (Zlat.). - “To those who seek Him,” that is, by deeds and vision” (Zlat.).

Hebrews 11:7. By faith Noah, having received a revelation of what had not yet been seen, reverently prepared an ark for the salvation of his house; by it he condemned (the whole) world, and became heir of the righteousness of faith.

“The example of Enoch was only an example of faith, but Noah (an example) was also of unbelief. Consolation and admonition are perfect when it is seen not only that believers are honored, but also that unbelievers suffer the opposite (Zlat). - “He condemned the world with it” (The addition “all” is not found either in Greek or in the best ancient Slavic texts) - “shows that those were worthy of punishment, who, even as a result of the preparation of the ark, did not correct themselves...” (Zlat.). - “And he became an heir of the righteousness of faith,” that is, his righteousness was revealed in this, that he believed God. This is the property of a soul that is sincerely disposed towards Him and does not consider anything more reliable than His words, while the opposite is characteristic of unbelief. It is clear that faith justifies..." (Zlat.).

Hebrews 11:8. By faith Abraham obeyed the call to go to the country that he had to receive as an inheritance, and he went, not knowing where he was going.

Hebrews 11:9. By faith he dwelt in the promised land as if it were a stranger, and lived in tents with Isaac and Jacob, joint heirs of the same promise;

“Since those who believed among the Jews looked at them (the forefathers) as having received countless benefits, then (the apostle) says that none of them received anything, that all remained unrewarded and not one received reward... But seeing that the promise is not fulfilled, he (Abraham) did not lose heart... and was not at all embarrassed, because the promise could be fulfilled later, in his descendants..." (Zlat.).

Hebrews 11:10. for he looked for a city that has foundations, whose maker and builder is God.

“What does it mean: “the foundations of a propertied city”? Don't these cities have foundations? In comparison with those they do not have. He is the “artist” and “creator” God. Oh, what praise to this city!” (Zlat.).

Hebrews 11:11. By faith Sarah herself (being barren) received strength to receive seed, and out of season she gave birth, for she knew that He who promised was faithful.

“By faith and Sarah herself...” “He began this with the aim of reproaching if they turned out to be more cowardly than the wife. But someone will say, how can she who laughs be called a believer? True, her laughter comes from unbelief, but her fear comes from faith; her words: “they did not laugh” (Gen. 18:15) came from faith. After unbelief disappeared, faith appeared...” (3lat.).

Hebrews 11:12. And therefore from one, and, moreover, a dead one, as many were born, as there are many stars in the sky and as countless are the sand on the seashore.

Hebrews 11:13. All these died in faith, not receiving the promises, but only saw them from afar, and rejoiced, and said about themselves that they were strangers and strangers on earth;

“All these died in faith, not having received the promises...” “Two questions are presented here: how, having said that Enoch was “translated not to see death, and not found,” now says: “By faith these all died”? And again: how, having said: “not receiving the promises,” does he say that Noah received the salvation of his family as a reward, Enoch was translated, Abel “still says,” Abraham received the land?.. “All,” he says. Here, not because they absolutely all died, but because, with the exception of Enoch, everyone we know as dead actually died. And the words: “not receiving promises” are fair, since the promise given to Noah did not apply to that.

What promises is he talking about?.. It was not a promise that Abel became the object of wonder, Enoch was translated, Noah was saved from the flood; all this was given to them for virtue, and was some foretaste of the future... Obviously, here we need to understand special future promises, a hint of which is made in the further words of the apostle; “they saw them from afar and rejoiced” (cf. John 8:56) and by which we should understand everything that was said about the future, about the resurrection, about the Kingdom of Heaven and about everything else that Christ preached when he came to earth - this is precisely him means by promises, which the patriarchs, although they did not receive, ended their lives trusting in them, and they trusted by faith alone” (Zlat).

“They saw them from afar and rejoiced...” “They were so confident in these promises that they even greeted them, just as sailors, having seen from afar the cities they were striving for, before entering them, turn to them with greetings and already count them with their own” (Zlat.). - “They said about themselves that they were wanderers and strangers on earth...” “The saints were wanderers and strangers. How and in what way? Where does Abraham recognize himself as a stranger and stranger? Maybe he admitted it too. And that David recognized himself as such is beyond doubt. (Ps 38:13). Those who lived in tents and purchased burial places for money were obviously such wanderers that they did not even have where to bury their dead. What then? Didn't they call themselves strangers in relation to only one land of Palestine? No, in relation to the whole universe, and this is fair: they did not see anything in it that they wanted, but everything was strange and alien to them” (Zlat.).

Hebrews 11:14. for those who say so show that they are looking for the fatherland.

Hebrews 11:15. And if they had in their thoughts the fatherland from which they came, they would have time to return;

Hebrews 11:16. but they strove for the best, that is, for the heavenly; Therefore God is not ashamed of them, calling Himself their God: for He has prepared a city for them.

They were looking for a fatherland. “Which one? Isn't it the one that was left? No. What would prevent them if they wanted to return there and be its citizens? They were looking for the heavenly fatherland. So they were in a hurry to leave here and so pleased God; therefore God himself is not ashamed to be called their God. Oh, what an honor! He wanted to be called their God. But what, you say, is important in the fact that He is not ashamed to be called their God, when He is called the God of earth and the God of heaven? This is important, truly important, and a sign of great bliss. Why? Because he is called the God of heaven and earth as well as the God of the pagans; He is the God of heaven and earth, as their Creator and Organizer, and He is not called the God of those saints in this sense, but as their close friend” (Zlat.).

Hebrews 11:17. By faith Abraham, when he was tempted, offered up Isaac, and having the promise, he offered up his only begotten,

“Great indeed is the faith of Abraham. God commanded the opposite of the promises, and, however, the righteous man was not embarrassed and did not consider himself deceived” (Zlat.). – “When we are tempted...” (Genesis 22:1). “There was no other reason for the bringing than this. However, didn’t God know that Abraham was a patient and valiant man? Absolutely knew. If he knew, then why did he tempt him? Not in order to find out for himself, but to show others and make his courage obvious to everyone” (Zlat.). - “Sacrificed Isaac.” “The sacrifice was completed and Isaac was slain according to the intention of Abraham” (Zlat.). - “He brought his only begotten...” “As his only begotten? And Ishmael? Where is he from? I call him the only begotten, he says, in relation to the promise” (Heb. 11:18).

Hebrews 11:18. of whom it was said, Thy seed shall be called in Isaac.

Hebrews 11:19. For he thought that God was able to resurrect from the dead, which is why he received it as an omen.

“I thought that God was able to raise people from the dead.” “The meaning of these words is as follows: by the same faith by which Abraham believed that God would give him a son whom he did not have, by the same faith he was convinced that God would raise the dead and resurrect the slain. It was equally wonderful, that is, according to human understanding, that a son would be born from a womb that was dead, obsolete and already incapable of childbearing, and that the one who had been slain would be resurrected, and yet he believed; his former faith led him to faith in the future” (Zlat.). - “That’s why I received it as an omen,” - Greek. όθεν αυτόν καί έν παραβολή εκομίσατο, - glor.: “in the same way he was accepted in parables,” that is, “in an image, since the ram was a parable of Isaac or an image. Since the sacrifice was completed and Isaac was slain in Abraham’s intention, God gave him to the patriarch” (Zlat.).

Hebrews 11:20. Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau with faith in the future.

“By faith in the future...” “Did the righteous really know the whole future? Certainly. If the Son of God did not reveal himself to those who could not accept Him due to their weakness (Matthew 13:17), then, without a doubt, he revealed himself to those glorified by virtues. So Paul now says that they knew the future, that is, the resurrection of Christ” (Zlat.). - “Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau...” “Although Esau was older, he puts Jacob ahead of him - for his virtues. Do you see what Isaac's faith was like? Why would he really promise such great benefits to his sons, if only not through faith in God? (Zlat.).

Hebrews 11:21. By faith Jacob, dying, blessed each son of Joseph and bowed down on the top of his staff.

The faith of Jacob mentioned here is very clearly revealed from the very content of his blessings and the prophecies he uttered at the same time, see Gen. 48: 13-21. - “And he bowed down on the top of his staff...” “Here the apostle shows that James not only said, but hoped for the future so much that he showed it in action. Since another king had to rise from Ephraim, he says: and he bowed to the top of his staff, that is, being already an old man, he bowed to Joseph, expressing the worship that was to be given to him by all the people. This was partly already fulfilled when his brothers bowed to him, but it was to be fulfilled even after ten generations” (Zlat.).

Hebrews 11:22. By faith Joseph, at his death, recalled the exodus of the children of Israel and testified about his bones.

Joseph heard that God announced and promised Abraham: I will give this land to you and to your seed, and therefore, being in a foreign land and not yet seeing the fulfillment of the promise, he did not lose heart, but believed so much that he reminded him of the exodus and made a testament about the bones theirs. Thus, he not only believed himself, but also led others to faith” (Zlat.).

Hebrews 11:23. By faith, Moses, after his birth, was hidden by his parents for three months, for they saw that the child was beautiful, and were not afraid of the king’s command.

Having spoken about Abel, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, who are all glorious and famous, the apostle then further strengthens the consolation by presenting unknown persons as examples..., he begins with the parents of Moses, unknown people and who did not have anything like the son had... Pharaoh ordered the destruction of all male babies, and no one escaped danger. Why did they hope to save their child? By faith. What faith? “You saw it before,” he says, “when you were a bright boy.” His very appearance attracted them to faith (Zlat.).

Hebrews 11:24. By faith Moses, when he came of age, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter,

Hebrews 11:25. and would rather suffer with the people of God than have temporary sinful pleasure,

Hebrews 11:26. and he considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth for himself than the treasures of Egypt; for he looked to the reward.

The Apostle seems to say to them this way: none of you left either the royal court, or the magnificent court, or such treasures, and did not refuse to be the king’s son when it was possible, as Moses did. And the apostle explained that he did not simply refuse this, saying: “having rejected”, that is, he despised, abhorred... (Zlat.). - “It was better to want to suffer with the people of God” “You, he says, suffer for yourself; but he chose to suffer for others and voluntarily exposed himself to such dangers, when he could have lived piously and enjoyed benefits” (Zlat.). - “Rather than have temporary, sinful pleasure.” What is here called sin is the reluctance to suffer with others: this, he says, he considered a sin. If so, then the great good is the suffering to which he voluntarily underwent, leaving the royal court. He did this, foreseeing something great (Zlat.). – “He considered the reproach of Christ to be wealth.” What does “reproach of Christ” mean? That is, the reproach that you endure, the reproach that Christ endured, or what he suffered for Christ, when they slandered him for the stone from which he brought water: “And the stone,” he says, “is Christ” (1 Cor. 10:4). When does reproach of Christ occur? When we, leaving our fatherly customs, suffer reproach, when, suffering, we resort to God... The reproach of Christ is to endure to the end and until the last breath, just as He Himself endured... The reproach of Christ is when someone endures reproach from his own, from those to whom he benefits... A life filled with pleasures is sinful, and a life filled with reproaches is Christ's... (Zlat.).

Hebrews 11:27. By faith he left Egypt, not fearing the king's wrath, for he, as if seeing the Invisible One, was steadfast.

“Not being afraid of the king’s wrath...” What do you say – “not being afraid”? Scripture, on the contrary, says that, having heard, he was afraid, therefore he sought salvation in flight, ran away, hid, and after that he was in fear. Take a closer look at what was said: the words: “he was not afraid of the king’s wrath” were said in relation to the fact that he later again appeared before the king. If he had been afraid, he would not have appeared again afterwards and would not have taken upon himself the matter of intercession; and if he took on this task, it means that he relied on God in everything... His very flight was a matter of faith. He did not stay, so as not to expose himself to the intended danger...! Yet he did this because “he who has seen and endured what is invisible...” Having in his mind the One who has honored us with true love, and remembering Him, can he feel any sorrow or be afraid of something terrible and dangerous? Will he ever be faint-hearted? Never! (Zlat.).

Hebrews 11:28. By faith he celebrated the Passover and the shedding of blood, so that the destroyer of the firstborn would not touch them.

What does “shedding of blood” mean?.. Shedding is the anointing of the blood of the Paschal Lamb, the thresholds, performed by the Jews at the command of God and which served to protect them from the destruction assigned to the Egyptians. The remedy was unimportant, but its effects were great; the remedy is blood, and the actions are salvation, protection, deliverance from destruction... Moses said: anoint, and the Jews anointed, and having anointed, they were confident in safety (Golden).

Hebrews 11:29. By faith they crossed the Red Sea as if on dry land, which the Egyptians attempted and drowned.

How did you cross over by faith? They hoped to cross the sea, and prayed for that, or better yet, Moses prayed. You see how faith always exceeds reasoning, weakness and human insignificance... It saves us even when we find ourselves in a hopeless situation, when death itself threatens us, when our circumstances are desperate (Zlat.).

Hebrews 11:30. By faith the walls of Jericho fell, after a seven-day march.

Trumpet sounds cannot destroy stone walls, even if someone has blown the trumpet for a thousand years, but faith can do everything (Zlat.).

Hebrews 11:31. By faith, Rahab the harlot, having received the spies in peace (and leading them through another path), did not perish with the infidels.

It is a shame if you have less faith than a harlot. Having heard the words of the messengers, she immediately believed why and the consequences were as follows: when everyone died, she alone was saved (Zlat.).

Hebrews 11:32. And what else can I say? I do not have enough time to tell about Gideon, about Barak, about Samson and Jephthah, about David, Samuel and (other) prophets,

The apostle gives no more examples, but, having ended as a harlot and being ashamed by the quality of this person, he does not expand further in narratives, so as not to seem verbose; however, he leaves them out imperfectly, but very wisely lists them in passing, achieving a double benefit - avoiding excess and not violating completeness (Zlat.). Some criticize Paul for placing Barak, Samson, and Jephea in this place. But what are you saying? How could he not mention them when he mentioned the harlot? Here we are not talking about other circumstances of their lives, but about whether they had faith, whether they shone with faith (Zlat.).

Hebrews 11:33. who by faith conquered kingdoms, did righteousness, received promises, stopped the mouth of lions,

Hebrews 11:34. they extinguished the power of fire, avoided the edge of the sword, strengthened themselves from weakness, were strong in war, drove away the regiments of strangers;

“Do you see that the apostle does not testify here about their glorious life? This is not primarily the question here, but rather the revelation of faith. The question is: did they do everything by faith? “By faith,” he says, “he conquered the kingdoms” that were under Gideon. "Tell the truth." Who? The same ones. Or he calls philanthropy here truth. "Receive the promises." I think he said this about David. What promises did he receive? Those that were contained in the words that his seed would sit on his throne (Ps. 132:11). “Blocking the mouths of lions, quenching the fiery power, escaping the sharp sword.” Look how they were in mortal danger - Daniel, surrounded by lions, the three youths who were in the oven, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob - in various temptations, and yet they did not despair (Golden). - "They avoided the edge of the sword..." I think, says Chrysostom, that he also said this about the three youths. - “They strengthened themselves from weakness, were strong in war, drove away the regiments of strangers...” Here he means the circumstances of the exodus from the captivity of Babylon. – “From weakness” - i.e. from captivity (Zlat.). When the circumstances of the Jews were in a desperate situation, when they were in no way different from dead bones, then their return (from captivity) took place.

Hebrews 11:35. wives received their dead resurrected; others were tortured without accepting liberation in order to receive a better resurrection;

“The women received their dead raised again...” Here he speaks of the prophets Elisha and Elijah, who raised the dead. - “Others were tortured, not accepting liberation, in order to receive a better resurrection ... “Here, it seems to me,” says Chrysostom, “he means John the Baptist and James, because beating (αποτυμπανισμός) means cutting off the head. They could have looked at the sunlight, they could have not made accusations, and yet they decided to die; and those who resurrected others chose death for themselves in order to receive a better resurrection.

Hebrews 11:36. others experienced insults and beatings, as well as chains and prison,

Hebrews 11:37. they were stoned, sawn apart, tortured, died by the sword, wandered around in sheepskins and goatskins, enduring disadvantages, sorrows, and bitterness;

He ends his speech with an indication of bonds, prisons, scourging, stoning, meaning what happened to Stephen and Zechariah: “by murder,” he adds, “by killing the sword.” What are you saying? Some “avoid the sharp edge of the sword”, while others “dead by killing the sword”? What does this mean? What are you praising? Why are you surprised? First come last? Truly, he says, to both. The first - because it is close to you, and the last - because faith showed its power at death itself... Both are miracles of faith; both the fact that she does great things, and the fact that she suffers great disasters and does not think about suffering (Zlat.).

Hebrews 11:38. those whom the whole world was not worthy of wandered through deserts and mountains, through caves and gorges of the earth.

“You cannot,” he says, say that these were sinful and insignificant people; no, even if you pitted the whole world against them, you would see that they tipped the scales and turned out to be more important... What could they get here as a reward for whom there is nothing worthy in the world? Here the apostle elevates their minds, teaching them not to cling to the present, but to think about what is higher than all the objects of real life, if the whole world is unworthy of them” (Zlat.). “We never in our dreams experienced what these men spent all their time in, not as punishment for sins, but constantly doing good deeds and constantly being exposed to sorrows. Imagine Elijah, about whom the apostle speaks in the words: “It happened in greatness,” and he ends the example with them, without leaving, however, others, since for them the same thing was an ordinary thing... Due to the abundance of sorrows, they did not have, he says, no clothes to cover themselves, no city, no house, no refuge, not even peace: they “wandered” there and were expelled from there...” (Zlat.).

Hebrews 11:39. And all these, who testified in faith, did not receive what was promised,

Hebrews 11:40. because God has provided something better for us, so that they would not reach perfection without us.

“What, he says, is the reward for such hope? What reward? Great, and so great that it cannot even be expressed in words (1 Cor 2:9). But they have not yet received this, they are still waiting, having died in such sorrows. So much time has already passed since they remained the winners, and have not yet received the reward; and you, while still in the struggle, lament. Think about what it means and what should Abraham and the Apostle Paul expect when you achieve perfection in order to then be able to receive a reward? The Savior predicted that He would not give them a reward until we came, just as a loving father says to well-behaved children who have done their work that He will not give them anything to eat until their brothers come. Are you complaining that you haven't received an award yet? What should Abel do, who conquered first and remains uncrowned? What about Noah? What about others who lived in those times and are waiting for you and those who will come after you? Do you see that we have an advantage over them? Therefore, the apostle said well: “It is best for God that I foresaw about us...” So that it would not seem that they have an advantage over us in that the first to be crowned, God determined to crown everyone at the same time, and the one who has won for so many years will receive the crown together with you. Do you see God's care for us? And he did not say: let them not be crowned without us, but: “let them not receive perfection without us”; that means then they will turn out to be perfect. They warned us about our exploits, but they will not warn us about receiving crowns; and this is not injustice to them, but honor to us, since they too are waiting for their brothers. If we are all one body, then it is more pleasant for this body when it is crowned entirely, and not in parts. The righteous are therefore worthy of admiration because they rejoice in the blessings of their brothers as well as their own. And they themselves desire to be crowned with their other members, because there is greater pleasure in general glorification” (Zlat.).

Commentary on the book

Comment to the section

11 The theme of faith, which forms the content of this chapter, is developed by the sacred writer with inspiration and great skill. After an introductory definition of the essence of faith (Art. Hebrews 11:1-2) a chain of examples taken from the Old Testament unfolds (cf. Sir 44-50) and showing it as a source of great patience and strength (v. Hebrews 11:3-31); each link of this chain is introduced 18 times by the repeated word “faith” (a stylistic device called anaphora). In the second part of the chapter ( Hebrews 11:32-40) describes various feats generated by faith.

11:1 "Realization of the expected", i.e. firm confidence in the immutability of God's promises. The author supplements this biblical concept with another definition - " confidence in the invisible", which is closer to the ancient philosophical understanding of the essence of faith.

The Epistle to the Hebrews was very early recognized as the inspired expression of the faith of the Church. Already at the end of the 1st century, St. Clement of Rome used it as a holy book. For St. Polycarp and St. Justin (2nd century), the authority of Hebrews was undeniable. In the 4th century, Hebrews was finally included in the canon of Holy Scripture.

The question of the author of the message is much more complicated. Although the Eastern (Greek) tradition attributed it to St. Paul, the text of Hebrews itself (unlike all other epistles) does not contain the name of the author. The language, style and manner of presentation of Hebrews are devoid of features characteristic of Paul. The author places himself among the generation that received the gospel faith from the apostles (Heb. 2:3). He was brought up in Hellenistic culture to a much greater extent than St. Paul. Hebrews does not have the strong personal imprint of Paul's epistles. The concept of faith—central to the apostle’s theological teaching—is complemented by the Greek concept of it (“the evidence of things not seen,” Heb. 11:1). The message pays much attention to the cult symbolism of the Old Testament and the ministry of the Jewish priesthood, as prototypes of the redemptive mystery of Christ. Some early Christian teachers believed that Hebrews was a translation, made by St. Luke, of an epistle written by Paul in Hebrew (Eusebius, Church Ist 6:14). Tertullian attributed Heb. to Barnabas. Origen was inclined to favor the authorship of Paul, nevertheless, according to him, “God alone knows” who wrote the epistle (ibid., 6 25). There are certainly many points of agreement in Hebrews with Paul's theological concept. Therefore, most modern commentators are of the view that Heb - “Pavlovian” in spirit, appeared in an environment close to the apostle, but was actually written by another person. Its closeness to Alexandrian religious philosophy (Philo) and the views of the Essenes, some of whom lived in Egypt (see Philo. On the Contemplative Life) suggests that the author could be Apollos. Luther first put forward this hypothesis. Indeed, Apollos was the only person close to Paul who mastered the Jewish education of Alexandria. According to Acts 18:24, Apollos was "an eloquent man and versed in the Scriptures"; This is exactly how the author of Heb. However, these are only indirect arguments, and the question of the authorship of the message remains open.

It is equally difficult to determine where the message was sent from and to. The author sends greetings from the “Italian” brothers. This may mean that he wrote in Italy, but on the other hand, colonies of "Italians" were scattered throughout the empire. The question of the addressee of the message (“Jews”) is also controversial. We are, of course, not talking about Jews professing the Old Testament religion, but about Jewish Christians. But in the 1st century there were many communities of Jewish Christians scattered throughout Syria, Palestine, and Egypt. The contents of Hebrews give some reason to believe that the members of this community of “Jews” were concerned about the problem of the temple cult because they were closely connected with the Jewish priesthood (cf. Acts 6:7). The author does not say a word about the destruction of the Temple (70) and mentions the sacrifices that continue to be offered in Jerusalem (Heb. 10:1-3). Therefore, the letter could have been written in the late 60s (probably during the life of St. Paul or shortly after his death).

Although there are personal messages and greetings at the end of Hebrews, it is not in the nature of an epistle in the strict sense of the word. Deep reflections on the truths of faith, based on the interpretation of the OT in the light of Christian Revelation, are interspersed with fiery exhortations to remain faithful to Christ. Before us is theological reflection and preaching: the author himself calls it “a word of exhortation” (Heb. 13:22; cf. Acts 13:15, where the sermon preached by Paul in the synagogue is also called). The thought of the writer-preacher flows smoothly, solemnly; he reveals the sophistication in the art of interpretation inherent in Alexandria school. This is where the author’s love for allegories stems.

The main content of the message boils down to the following: a) the Old Testament sacrifices were supposed to cleanse people, introducing them to God; b) since these sacrifices were only a type of the one Sacrifice of the Son of God, they have a transitory significance; c) belonging simultaneously to the divine and earthly world, Christ, the true High Priest and Sacrifice, united man with God; d) to abide in the New Covenant (cf. Heb 8:9), established by Christ the High Priest, people must live in faith, love and patience, as the true new people of the Lord.

1. The Epistles of St. Apostle Paul are - after the Gospels - the most important document of sacred New Testament writing. Addressed to individual church communities, even during the life of the apostle they enjoyed authority among many Christians: they were read at prayer meetings, copied, and distributed. As Acts and the Epistles show, St. Paul was not the only teacher and evangelist of early Christianity. Others worked alongside him. There were circles of influence of Apostle Peter, Apostle John, and James the Brother of the Lord. The gospel of St. Paul was not met with complete understanding everywhere. But gradually, by the end of the 1st century. The Church accepted his Epistles as a divinely inspired apostolic expression of the fundamental truths of the Gospel teaching. The fact that these truths were revealed to a person who did not know Jesus Christ during His earthly life testifies to the ongoing action of the Son of God and the Spirit of the Lord. At the time of St. Paul's preaching, the four canonical Gospels did not yet exist. When they appeared, it became obvious how much the genuine Spirit of Christ permeated his gospel and theology.

2. Information about the life of St. Paul is contained in the Acts and Epistles. Here we indicate only the main milestones in the biography of the “apostle of nations.” Saul (Paul) was born in Tarsus of Cilicia in the south of Asia Minor in the early years of A.D. into a family of zealous worshipers of the Law who belonged to the school of the Pharisees (Ac 22:3; Ph 3:5). His parents sent him to Jerusalem, where he studied under the “patriarch” of the Pharisees, Gamaliel I (Ac 22:3). In 35-36 Saul witnessed and took part in the massacre of St. Stephen and fiercely persecuted Hellenistic Christians (Ac 7:58; Ac 8:1, Ac 8:3; Ga 1:13-14). Then his sudden conversion occurred (Ac 9:1-19; Ac 22:4-16; Ac 26:12-18; Ga 1:15). Having become a follower of Christ, Saul lived for three years in Nabatea (Ga 1:17), preaching in Damascus, where he was first persecuted (Ac 9:19-25). Around 39, he visited Jerusalem and met St. Peter and James (Ga 1:18-19). From 39 to 43 he remained in his homeland in Tarsus, from where he was called by St. Barnabas to participate in work in the field of the Lord (Acts 11). In 46 he brought donations to Jerusalem Christians (Ac 11:28-30). From 45 to 49, the first missionary journey of St. Paul lasted (together with St. Barnabas and Mark). He visits Fr. Cyprus and the cities of Pamphylia and Pisidia (southern Asia). In 49 or 50, he was again in Jerusalem, where the “Apostolic Council” took place, which abolished the obligation for non-Jewish Christians to observe the Old Testament rites. From 50 to 52, Paul goes around Syria, Asia Minor and lands on the European shore for the first time. He establishes churches in the Balkans (2nd missionary journey, Ac 15:36-18:22). The 3rd journey was undertaken to visit and spiritually strengthen the communities he had previously founded (Ac 18:23-21:16). The Apostle goes around the cities of Asia Minor, Macedonia, Greece and sails from the Asia Minor port of Miletus to Palestine. In 58 the apostle arrived in Jerusalem. There he was attacked by fanatics and was taken under escort to Caesarea, the residence of the Roman procurator (Ac 21:27 f.). The Apostle Paul was imprisoned for two years. He rejected the offer of the governor of Festus to be tried in Jerusalem and demanded the judgment of Caesar (Ac 25:9-11); he was sent by ship to the capital. He reached the shores of Italy and in 60 arrived in Rome. The account of Acts ends in 63. There is reason to believe that Paul was acquitted and carried out his plan to visit the western border of the empire, Spain (Rm 16:23-24). When he came to Rome a second time (c. 67), he was again arrested (2Tm 1:15-17) and sentenced to death. By this time, the imperial authorities already knew about the existence of Christians (in 64, for the first time, “a huge number” of believers in Christ were executed, who were accused of setting the city on fire). As a Roman citizen, St. Paul was beheaded.

Tracing the fate of Paul's Epistles is much more difficult than the events of his life. It is unknown who and when collected the selected epistles of the apostle into one book (not all were included in the collection, cf 1Co 5:9). 2P 3:15-16 hints at the existence of such a collection. The letters of Paul are known to St. Clement of Rome (90s of the 1st century), St. Ignatius of Antioch (beginning of the 2nd century) and St. Polycarp of Smyrna (ca. 110-120). At the end of the 2nd century. The Muratori canon already included the 13 Epistles of Paul (except Hebrews) as part of the Holy Scriptures. OK. 144, the heretic Marcion published the first collection of Epistles known to us (Gal 1-2, Cor, Rom, 1-2 Thess, Eph, Col, Phil, Phil; cf St. Epiphanius. Against heresies, 42).

4. St. Paul speaks of “his gospel,” but this does not mean that he considers himself the founder of a new religion and preaches his own teaching (Rm 2:16; Rm 14:24); Not for a minute does he allow his readers to forget that he sees in himself only a follower, a servant, an apostle of Jesus Christ. “Paul's Gospel” has four sources, which he himself quite clearly points to: 1) direct revelation received by the apostle from the Risen Christ (see, for example, Ga 1:11-12); 2) everything that Paul “received” through the witnesses of the Lord’s earthly life and through the apostolic Tradition (Ac 9:10 ff; 1Co 7:10, 1Co 7:25; Rm 6:17; Ga 1:18); 3) Holy Scripture of the Old Testament, in which the apostle saw the true Word of God (2Tm 3:16); 4) The tradition of the OT Church, especially that which developed during the era of the Second Temple. St. Paul learned many theological concepts and interpretations from his rabbinical teachers (in particular, Gamaliel) at school. Traces of influence on the apostle of Hellenistic thought are insignificant. He was hardly well-read in the works of ancient authors. In the Epistles one can find only indirect allusions to their doctrines (for example, Stoicism), which were widespread in that era.

Theologian The teaching of St. Paul is the gospel of salvation and freedom. IN brief outline it can be reduced to the following scheme. The Creator's plan is aimed at the benefit of all creation. This plan is the “secret” of God, which is revealed to people gradually. The dark forces that rebelled against the Creator resist the implementation of the divine Will. They introduced corruption into nature and sin into people’s lives. Since humanity was created as a kind of single superorganism (“Adam”), its contamination with sin became an obstacle to Adam’s initiation into the highest divine Good. The primordial (“Old”) Adam is, however, only an image (prototype) of the future renewed and saved humanity, the soul or head of which became the “New Adam,” Christ. St. Paul does not use the messianic title “Son of Man,” since it was little understood by his non-Jewish readers. Nevertheless, Paul retains the very concept of the Son of Man as the Messiah, in whom all the faithful abide (Dn 7:13-14, Dn 7:18, Dn 7:27). The apostle considers his redemptive mission in the light of the prophecy about the Servant (Servant) of the Lord (Is. 53). In accordance with the teachings of late Judaism, St. Paul divides Sacred History into two eons (centuries) - old and new, i.e. messianic, which began from the moment of the appearance of Jesus. In the new eon, the Law of the Old Testament ceases to be binding, for the Messiah reveals a different, more perfect way of salvation. In the old eon (OT) Satan and sin reign. In order for people to realize their imperfection, they were given the Law of Moses. But the ability to overcome evil is brought not by the Law, but by the grace-filled power coming from Christ. By uniting with fallen humanity, the Sinless One grants salvation to sinners. It is realized in spiritual unity with Christ through trust in Him, faith in Him. Faith is an act of free will. Faith is not reduced to the fulfillment of this or that ritual and ethical regulation; it is “life in Christ,” “imitation” of Him, a mystical union with Him, making the faithful one Body of Christ. Jesus is the only “Intercessor”, the Mediator between the Divine and the created world, for He unites in Himself the divine principle and the human principle. External signs of free acceptance of faith are Baptism and the Eucharist, and in everyday life - love, active good, service to others. Without love, even faith has no power and is not true faith. The apostle sees the completion of earthly history and God's plan in the complete victory of Light and the destruction of sin and death. The saving deeds of the Lord will be crowned with the general resurrection and life of the next century.

The style of the Epistles of St. Paul is highly original. He usually dictated them, and therefore they retain the imprint of living, direct speech. They combine inspired preaching, exhortations, polemics, theological reflections, autobiographical elements, discussion of private problems and everyday requests. Sometimes the apostle’s messages turn into real hymns and prayers, introducing us to the world of the mystical experience of the saint. Written under the strain of all spiritual strength, the Messages reflect character, experiences, moral character author. At first glance, there is no clear sequence of thought in them, but upon closer reading, its main direction always emerges.

Paul spoke Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek (perhaps Latin), and this affected his Epistles. Their construction reveals a person of Semitic culture, but who has well mastered the Greek manner of expression. He quotes Scripture from the Septuagint; The imagery and spirit of the Bible permeate every line of Paul.

The messages were written between the 50s and 60s (more about the dating will be discussed below in the notes).

Hide

Commentary on the current passage

Commentary on the book

Comment to the section

1 The essence of faith lies primarily in the realization of things hoped for, and by these things hoped for are meant the promised benefits of the future. In relation to the invisible, faith is the same as touch and direct contemplation in relation to the visible. " Faith is the contemplation of the implicit and leads to the same complete conviction in the invisible as in the visible. Just as it is impossible not to believe what is visible, so it is impossible to have faith when one is not convinced of the invisible just as much as of the visible. Objects of hope seem to have no reality, but faith gives them reality... so, for example, the resurrection has not yet happened and does not exist in reality, but hope makes it valid in our soul"(John Chrysostom).

Epistle to the Hebrews St. The Apostle Paul differs from the other epistles of this apostle especially in that it does not name its author anywhere, which - due to other differences in presentation - the Apostle Paul was not always unanimously considered to be.

One of the earliest mentioners of the letter is St. Clement of Rome (at the end of the 1st century) - does not allow us to draw from his quotes any definite judgment about who exactly the Romans considered to be the author of the letter. Among further Western church writers, Tertullian, referring to the message, attributes it to Barnabas. Eastern writers are unanimous and more definite than Western ones. Panten, Clement of Alexandria, Origen not only cite the message under the name “epistles to the Hebrews,” but also recognize it precisely as the work of the Apostle Paul. Origen even confirms this by referring to the evidence of tradition. However, it is necessary to make a reservation, the obvious features of the language of the message also caused Origen to guess that although the thoughts of this message are entirely Pavlovian, their presentation could belong to one of his students - either Luke or Clement.

Be that as it may, already in the 2nd century. The East was unanimous in recognizing Pavlov's message. The West established itself in this opinion later (in the half of the 4th century, with the spread of the works of Origen). And finally, at the Council of Carthage (397), the epistle was decisively recognized as the epistle of the Apostle Paul, number 14.

What signs made one doubt that the epistle belonged to the Apostle Paul, how could their strength be weakened, and what evidence suggests that the epistle belonged to the named apostle?

One of the most obvious signs that seems to give strong grounds for doubting that the epistle belongs to the Apostle Paul is this Hebrews 2:3, where it seems to be coming from some other person. They also pointed out the unusual way for Paul to quote the Old Testament in this letter. Usually he cites passages from the Old Testament everywhere according to the LXX translation, but he also uses the Hebrew text, if this is more accurate; whereas in the Epistle to the Hebrews the author exclusively uses only LXX, even though this text allowed for significant inaccuracies. The very form of quotation deviates significantly from the usual for Paul. If in other epistles it is usually expressed: “the Scripture speaks” or “such and such a writer,” here either God or the Holy Spirit appears to be speaking. Finally, the last epistle differs from the others in its greater purity of language, more reminiscent of the Gospel and the Acts of Luke.

In contrast to all this, it is enough to point out several places in the epistle where the identity of the writer, if not mentioned, is clearly revealed (cf. Hebrews 13:23.24), and where certain expressions and views turn out to be completely akin to Pavlov’s (cf. e.g. EUR 10:30 And Rom 12:19). There is no doubt about the author of the message and the entire content and the very spirit of the message. As for the fact that the apostle, contrary to his custom, does not name himself anywhere in the epistle, this very thing, finding a fair explanation for itself, only serves to further confirm his authorship. The fact is that the apostle had to take into account the very hostile feelings of his fellow tribesmen to whom his message was sent, which is why he considered it necessary not to mention his name.

The reason, and partly the time of writing the message, is determined from EUR 6, and further, Hebrews 10:26-39, and other places. These passages speak of the great danger for faith in mixing Christian demands with Judaism and the need to establish a completely independent and dominant meaning of Christianity independent of Judaism. This danger threatened especially the Palestinian Jewish Christians, who could not get used to their new position in Christianity and continued not only out of habit, but also out of conviction, to perform all temple rites and Jewish laws, considering them essential for salvation. In subsequent times, when the Palestinian Church lost such an influential primate as the Apostle James († 62 A.D.), and when disappointment began to creep into the souls of many regarding the kingdom of the Messiah, in which they had to endure so much suffering and in which participation was united with the loss of the nationality and characteristic features of Israel, then many left Christian meetings and returned again to Jewish service. Others, unable to maintain the true faith, fell into a special kind of embittered state, which then degenerated into the heresy of the Euphneans and Nazarenes. Most of all, everything (approx. around 66, cf. Heb 13:23) this should have weighed on the soul of such a zealot as Paul, which is why he writes his letter to the Palestinians, the purpose of which is clearly indicated in Heb 13:22. This is an admonition not to give up faith in Jesus Christ and hope in Him. He is the fulfillment of everything that in the Old Testament was only the subject of transformations and promises. And if the glory of the New Testament, which replaced the old one, is still hidden in the darkness of suffering, then this is completely in accordance with the aspirations and spirit of Christianity ( Hebrews 13:13-14) and does not exclude the hope in the future to achieve corresponding greatness and glory through suffering.

The main thoughts of the message: the superiority of the Founder of the Christian faith, as the God-man, over Moses ( EUR 1-4); superiority of the sanctifying and saving means given to men through Jesus Christ, as the divine High Priest, seated at the right hand of God the Father ( EUR 5-10), and, finally, the superiority of the believers in Christ themselves with such grace-filled means for salvation from sin and death and the closest communion with God, under the guidance of pastors and teachers of the Church.

Such justification and clarification of the spirit and power of Christianity makes the epistle extremely important and valuable not only for Jews, but also for all believers of all times and peoples, giving the necessary completion to all other apostolic epistles, which contain the entire system of Christian theology.

The original language of the message is believed by some to be Hebrew; It was probably translated into Greek by Clement, the Pope.

Life ap. Pavel

In the life of the Apostle Paul, one must distinguish between: 1) his life as a Jew and a Pharisee, 2) his conversion, and 3) his life and work as a Christian and an apostle.

I. The Apostle Paul before his conversion. Paul was born in the Cilician city of Tarsus, located on the border between Syria and Asia Minor ( Acts 21:39). He was a Jew from the tribe of Benjamin ( Rom 11:1 And Phil 3:5). His original name was Saul or Saul, and was given to him, probably, in memory of the first king of the Jews, who came from the tribe of Benjamin. Saul's parents belonged, by conviction, to the Pharisee party, which was distinguished by its strict adherence to the Law of Moses ( Acts 23:6; Wed Phil 3:5). Probably for some merit, father or grandfather. Paul received the rights of a Roman citizen - a circumstance that turned out to be useful for the apostle. Paul during his missionary activity Acts 16:37 et seq.; 22:25-29 ; 23:27 ).

The language spoken in Paul's family was, without a doubt, then commonly used in the Jewish communities of Syria - Syro-Chaldean. Meanwhile, there is no doubt that Saul, while still a boy, became quite familiar with the Greek language, which was spoken by the majority of the inhabitants of Tarsus - the Greeks. Tarsus, during the time of St. Paul, was in relation to the education of the inhabitants a rival of Athens and Alexandria, and the apostle therefore could hardly, with his talent and curiosity, pass by Greek literature without becoming familiar with it. At least, based on his messages and speeches, one can conclude that he was acquainted with some Greek poets. The first quotation he makes from Greek poets belongs to the Cilician poet Aratus and is also found in Cleanthes - this is precisely the word: “we are His kind!” ( Acts 17:28). The second is borrowed from Menander ( 1 Cor 15:30), the third - from the Cretan poet Epimenides ( Titus 1:12). The likelihood of the hypothesis about his some acquaintance with Greek literature is also supported by the fact that the apostle had to give his speeches to the educated Athenians, and for this he had to at least become somewhat familiar with their religious and philosophical views, since they were expressed in the poetic works of Greek thinkers . In the East, in big cities, there are still many people who speak two or three languages. And such people are found in the lower classes of society.

However, Paul's upbringing and training undoubtedly went in the direction of Judaism and rabbinism: this is evidenced by his peculiar dialectic, and his method of presentation, as well as his style. It is very likely that, in view of his special talents, he was already destined for rabbinical service at an early age. Perhaps for this purpose, Pavel’s parents took care to teach him the craft of a tent-maker (σκηνοποιός - Acts 18:3): according to the Jewish view, the rabbi had to stand independently of his students in relation to material support (Pirke Abot., II, 2).

If we pay attention to all these circumstances of Paul's childhood, we will fully understand his grateful feelings with which he spoke later: " God who chose me from my mother's womb" (Gal 1:15). If indeed the task intended for Paul was to free the Gospel from the veils of Judaism in order to offer it in a purely spiritual form to the pagan world, then the apostle needed to combine two apparently opposite conditions. First of all, he had to come out of the womb of Judaism, because only in this case could he thoroughly learn what life under the law is, and be convinced from his own experience of the uselessness of the law for the salvation of man. On the other hand, he had to be free from the national Jewish antipathy towards the pagan world, which especially permeated Palestinian Judaism. Didn't it help him in part to open the doors of the kingdom of God to the pagans of the whole world by the fact that he grew up among Greek culture, with which he shows quite good acquaintance? Thus, Jewish legalism, Greek education and Roman citizenship are the advantages that the apostle had with his spiritual gifts, especially received from Christ, which he needed as a preacher of the Gospel throughout the world.

When Jewish boys reached the age of 12, they were usually taken to Jerusalem for the first time for one of the main holidays: from then on they became, according to the expression of that time, “sons of the law.” This was probably the case with Paul. But after that he stayed in Jerusalem to live, it seems, with relatives, in order to enter the rabbinical school there (cf. Acts 23:16). At that time, the disciple of the famous Hillel, Gamaliel, was famous in Jerusalem for his knowledge of the law, and the future apostle settled down “at the feet of Gamaliel” ( Acts 22:3), becoming his diligent student. Although the teacher himself was not a man of extreme views, his student became a most zealous reader of the Law of Moses both in theory and in practice ( Gal 1:14; Phil 3:6). He directed all the strength of his will towards the implementation of the ideal outlined in the law and in the interpretations of the fathers, in order to be awarded a glorious position in the kingdom of the Messiah.

Paul had three qualities rarely combined in a person, which already at that time attracted the attention of his superiors: strength of mind, firmness of will and liveliness of feeling. But in appearance, Pavel did not make a particularly favorable impression. Barnabas in Lycaonia was declared to be Jupiter, and Paul - only Mercury, from which it is clear that the first was much more impressive than the second ( Acts 14:12). However, one can hardly attach importance to the testimony of the apocryphal work of the 2nd century - Acta Pauli et Theclae, where Paul is depicted as a short man, bald and with a large nose... Whether Paul was a man of a sickly build, it is difficult to say anything definite about this. Occasionally he actually experienced pain ( Gal 4:13), but this did not prevent him from going around almost the entire then European south. As for the "angel of Satan" given to him ( 2 Cor 12:7), then this expression does not necessarily indicate a physical illness, but can also be interpreted in the sense of special persecution to which Paul was subjected in carrying out his missionary work.

The Jews usually married early. Was Paul married? Clement of Alexandria And Eusebius of Caesarea, and after them Luther and the reformers gave an affirmative answer to this question. But the tone in which Paul speaks in 1 Corinthians about the gift given to him (v. 7) may rather serve as a basis for the assumption that Paul was not married.

Did Paul see Jesus Christ during his stay in Jerusalem? This is very likely, due to the fact that Paul visited Jerusalem on major holidays, and the Lord Jesus Christ also came here at this time. But in the letters of the Apostle Paul there is not a single indication of this (words 2 Cor 5:16, indicate only the carnal nature of the messianic expectations widespread among Jews).

Having reached the age of thirty, Paul, as the most zealous Pharisee and a hater of the new, Christian teaching, which seemed to him a deception, received an order from the Jewish authorities to persecute the adherents of the new sect - Christians, then still called by the Jews simply "heretic Nazarenes" ( Acts 24:5). He was present at the murder of St. Stephen and participated in the persecution of Christians in Jerusalem, and then went to Damascus, the main city of Syria, with letters from the Sanhedrin, which authorized him to continue his inquisitorial activities in Syria.

II. Appeal. Pavel finds no joy in his activities. As can be seen from Romans 7, Paul was aware that he had a very serious obstacle to achieving the legal ideal of righteousness: lust (v. 7). The painful feeling of one’s powerlessness in doing good was, so to speak, a negative factor in preparing the turning point that happened to Paul on the way to Damascus. In vain he tried to satiate his soul, which was seeking righteousness, with the intensity of his activity aimed at defending the law: he failed to extinguish the thought that was sharpening his heart that with the law one would not achieve salvation...

But it would be completely contrary to the whole history of Paul to explain this turning point that took place in him as a natural consequence of his spiritual development. Some theologians present the event that happened to Paul on the road to Damascus as a purely subjective phenomenon that took place only in the mind of Paul. Holsten (in his essay: " About the Gospel of Peter and Paul") gives some witty considerations in favor of such a hypothesis, but even Baur, Holsten's teacher, who also considered the appearance of Christ at the conversion of Paul as an "external reflection of the spiritual activity" of the apostle, could not help but admit that this event remains extremely mysterious. The Apostle Paul himself looks at his conversion as a matter of coercion on the part of Christ, Who chose him as His instrument in the work of saving people ( 1 Cor 9:16,18, Wed 5-6). The message about the fact itself, found in the book of Acts, agrees with this view of the apostle. Paul's conversion is mentioned three times in the book of Acts. Acts 9:1-22; 22:3-16 And 26:9-20 ), and everywhere in these places one can find indications that the companions of the Apostle Paul, indeed, noticed something mysterious that happened to Paul himself, and that this mysterious thing, to a certain extent, happened sensually and was accessible to perception. They did not see the person who spoke to Paul, says the book of Acts ( 9:7 ), and saw a glow that was brighter than midday light ( 20:9 ; 26:13 ); they did not hear clearly the words spoken to Paul ( 22:9 ), but the sounds of voices were heard ( 9:7 ). From this, in any case, the conclusion should be drawn that the “appearance at Damascus” was objective, external.

Paul himself was so sure of this that in 1 Corinthians ( 1 Cor 9:1), in order to prove the reality of his apostolic calling, refers to this very fact of “his vision of the Lord.” IN 1 Cor. ch. 15th of the same epistle, he places this phenomenon along with the appearances of the Risen Christ to the apostles, separating it from his later visions. And the purpose of this chapter proves that he was not thinking here about anything else but the external, bodily appearance of Christ, for this purpose is to clarify the reality of the bodily resurrection of the Lord, in order to draw a conclusion from this fact about the reality of the resurrection of bodies in general. But internal visions could never serve as proof of either the bodily resurrection of Christ or ours. It should also be noted that when the apostle talks about visions, he treats them with strict criticism. So he speaks hesitantly, for example, about his rapture to the third heaven: “I don’t know,” “God knows” ( 2 Cor 12:1 et seq.). Here he speaks of the Lord’s appearance to him without any reservations (cf. Gal 1:1).

Renan makes an attempt to explain this phenomenon by some random circumstances (a storm that broke out in Livon, a flash of lightning, or an attack of fever in Paul). But to say that such superficial reasons could have such a profound effect on Paul, changing his entire worldview, would be extremely reckless. Reus recognizes Paul's conversion as an inexplicable psychological mystery. It is also impossible to agree with other theologians of the negative trend (Golsten, Krenkel, etc.) that in Paul there had long been “two souls” fighting among themselves - one the soul of a Jewish fanatic, the other of a person already disposed towards Christ. Pavel was a man cast, so to speak, from the same ingot. If he thought about Jesus on the road to Damascus, then he thought about Him with hatred, as most Jews tend to think about Christ now. That the Messiah could be presented to him as a heavenly, luminous image is extremely incredible. The Jews imagined the Messiah as a mighty hero who would be born in Israel, grow up in secrecy, and then appear and lead his people in a victorious struggle against the pagans, followed by his reign in the world. Jesus did not do this, and therefore Paul could not believe in Him as the Messiah; yet he could imagine Him to be in heaven.

With the conversion of Paul, a decisive hour struck in the history of mankind. The time had come when the union once concluded by God with Abraham was to spread to the whole world and embrace all the nations of the earth. But such an extraordinary undertaking required an extraordinary figure. The twelve Palestinian apostles were not suited to this task, while Paul was, so to speak, prepared by all the circumstances of his life for its implementation. He was a true vessel of Christ ( Acts 9:15) and was fully aware of it ( Rom 1:1-5).

What happened in Paul's soul during the three days that followed this great event? Hints about this time gives us Chapter 6 Romans. From this we see that the apostle then experienced within himself the death of the old man and the resurrection of the new. Saul died, who placed all his power in his own righteousness, or, what is the same, in the law, and Paul was born, who believed only in the power of the grace of Christ. Where did his fanatical zeal for the law lead? To resist God and persecute the Messiah and His Church! Paul understood the reason for this result clearly: wanting to base his salvation on his own righteousness, he sought through this to glorify not God, but himself. Now it was no longer a secret to him that this path of self-justification leads only to internal discord, to spiritual death.

Love for Christ burned in his soul with a bright flame, kindled in him by the action of the Holy Spirit communicated to him, and he now felt able to complete the feat of obedience and self-sacrifice, which seemed so difficult to him while he was under the yoke of the law. Now he has become not a slave, but a child of God.

Paul now understood the significance of the various provisions of the Mosaic Law. He saw how insufficient this law was as a means of justification. The law now appeared in his eyes as an educational institution of a temporary nature ( Col 2:16-17). Finally, who is the one thanks to whom humanity received all the gifts of God without any assistance from the law? Is this person simple? Now Paul brought to mind that this Jesus, condemned to death by the Sanhedrin, was condemned as a Blasphemer, who declared himself the Son of God. This statement hitherto seemed to Paul the height of wickedness and deception. Now he puts this statement in connection with the majestic phenomenon that happened to him on the road to Damascus, and Paul’s knees bow before the Messiah not only as the son of David, but also as the Son of God.

With this change in understanding of the person of the Messiah was combined Paul's change in understanding of the work of the Messiah. While the Messiah appeared to Paul's mind only as the son of David, Paul understood His task as the task of glorifying Israel and extending the power and binding force of the Mosaic Law to the whole world. Now God, who revealed to Paul and this son of David according to the flesh His true Son - the divine Person, at the same time gave a different direction to Paul’s thoughts about the calling of the Messiah. The Son of David belonged to Israel alone, and the Son of God could come to earth only to become the Redeemer and Lord of all mankind.

Paul found out all these main points of his Gospel for himself in the first three days that followed his conversion. What for the 12 apostles was their three-year conversion with Christ, which ended this circle of their education with the descent of the Holy Spirit on them on the day of Pentecost, was received by Paul through intense inner work within three days after his calling. If he had not done this hard work on himself, then the very appearance of the Lord for Paul and for the whole world would have remained dead capital (cf. Luke 16:31).

III. Apostolic ministry of Paul. Paul became an apostle from the very moment he believed in Christ. This is clearly evidenced by the history of his conversion, as reported in the book. Acts ( Acts ch. 9); and Pavel himself ( 1 Cor 9:16,17). He was forced by the Lord to take upon himself the apostolic ministry, and he immediately fulfilled this command.

Paul's conversion probably took place in the 30th year of his life. His apostolic activity also lasted about 30 years. It is divided into three periods: a) preparation time - about 7 years; b) the apostolic activity itself, or his three great missionary journeys, covering a time of about 14 years, and c) the time of his imprisonment - two years in Caesarea, two years in Rome, adding here the time that elapsed from the liberation of Paul from the first Roman bonds to his death - only about 5 years.

a) Although Paul became a full-fledged apostle from the time of his calling, he did not immediately begin the work for which he was chosen. Mainly the pagans were to be the subject of his concern ( Acts 9:15), but Paul actually begins by preaching to the Jews. He goes to the Jewish synagogue of Damascus and here he already meets pagan newcomers, who for him are the bridge that led him to acquaintance with the purely pagan population of the city. By doing this, Paul showed that he fully recognized the special rights of Israel to be the first to hear the message of Christ ( Rom 1:16; 2:9,10 ). And subsequently Paul never missed an opportunity to show special respect to the rights and advantages of his people.

He made his first journey with Barnabas. It was not distant: Paul visited this time only the island of Cyprus and the provinces of Asia Minor lying to the north of it. From that time on, the apostle adopted the name Paul ( Acts 13:9), consonant with his former name - Saul. He probably changed his name according to the custom of the Jews, who, when traveling through pagan countries, usually replaced their Jewish names with Greek or Roman ones. (Jesus was made into John, and Eliakim into Alcimus.) Addressing the pagans during this journey, the apostle undoubtedly proclaimed to them the only means of justification - faith in Christ, without obliging them to fulfill the works of the law of Moses: this is clearly seen from the fact itself Christ’s calling of a new apostle, except for the 12, and from the words of Paul himself ( Gal 1:16). Moreover, if already up. Peter found it possible to free pagans who converted to Christianity from observing the Law of Moses (and above all, from circumcision - Acts 11:1-2), then we can be all the more sure that even on his first journey, the Apostle Paul to the Gentiles freed them from fulfilling the Law of Moses. Thus, the opinion of Gausrath, Sabota, Geus and others that Paul on his first journey had not yet developed a definite view on the question of the meaning of the law for the pagans should be recognized as unfounded.

As for how the ap looked. Paul in the first time of his missionary activity on the meaning of the Law of Moses for Jewish Christians, this is a more complex question. We see that at the Council of Jerusalem, held in the presence of St. Paul after his first journey, the question of the obligation of the Law of Moses for Jewish Christians was not raised: all members of the council, obviously, recognized that this obligation was beyond doubt.

But Paul himself had a different view of this. From the Epistle to the Galatians we see that he placed all the power that justifies man in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ alone, that he had already died to the law from the time he turned to Christ ( Gal 2:18-20). The twelve apostles were apparently expecting some external event that would be a signal of the abolition of the law of Moses, for example, the appearance of Christ in His glory, while for the apostle. Paul, the need for this abolition became clear from the very moment of his calling. But ap. Paul did not want to force the other apostles to take his point of view, but, on the contrary, he himself made concessions to them where they were the heads of Judeo-Christian communities. And subsequently he condescended to the views on the Law of Moses that had become established among Judeo-Christians, guided in this case by a feeling of brotherly love ( 1 Cor 9:19-22). In order for his disciple, Timothy, to be better accepted by the Jews, he circumcised him, however, already a considerable time after Timothy’s conversion to Christianity ( Acts 16:1). On the other hand, when it came to the very principle of justification, Paul did not make any concessions: he did not allow Titus, a Greek, to be circumcised while he was in prison. Jerusalem Cathedral, because Paul’s enemies, who demanded this circumcision, would have accepted the apostle’s consent to this as his betrayal of his convictions about the non-binding nature of the Law of Moses for Gentile Christians ( Gal 2:3-5).

The Apostolic Council generally ended very favorably for Paul. The Church of Jerusalem and its leading leaders recognized that the newcomers from Jerusalem—Jewish Christians—who troubled the Antiochian Christians were wrong when they demanded that the Antiochians, in addition to the Gospel, also accept circumcision, which supposedly made them full heirs of the promises of salvation. The Apostles of Jerusalem clearly showed that they do not consider it necessary for pagans turning to Christ to accept circumcision with all the rites of the Mosaic Law. Sermon by Ap. Paul was recognized here as completely correct and sufficient ( Gal 2:2-3), and ap. Paul, as you know, proclaimed to the pagans that if they accept circumcision when turning to Christ, then Christ will not bring them any benefit ( Gal 5:2-4). The Council demanded that pagan Christians observe only the most elementary requirements of purity, known as the “Noahic commandments,” while Levitical rites were thus reduced to the level of simple national customs - no more ( Acts 15:28-29).

On their return to Antioch, Paul and Barnabas took with them Silas, one of the believing men of the Jerusalem church, who was commissioned to acquaint the Syrian and Cilician communities with the decision of the Apostolic Council. Shortly thereafter, Paul went with Silas on a second missionary journey. This time Paul visited the churches of Asia Minor that he founded on his first trip. Paul probably sought to visit Ephesus, the center of the religious and intellectual life of Asia Minor, but God decided otherwise. It was not Asia Minor, but Greece that demanded an apostle. Detained by his illness in Galatia for quite a long time, Paul founded churches here ( Gal 4:14) among the descendants of the Celts who moved here three centuries BC. When Paul and Silas went from here further to preach the Gospel, they had almost no success anywhere and soon found themselves on the shore of the Aegean Sea, in Troas. In a vision it was revealed to Paul here that Europe and, above all, Macedonia awaited him. Paul went to Europe, accompanied by Silas, Timothy, who joined him in Lycaonia, and the physician Luke ( Acts 16:10. Wed 20:5 ; 21:1 ; 28:1 ).

In a very short time, churches were founded in Macedonia: Philippi, Anthipolis, Thessalonica and Berois. In all these places, persecution was launched against Paul by the Roman authorities, because the local Jews represented Christ as a rival to Caesar. From persecution, Paul moved further to the south, and finally arrived in Athens, where he outlined his teachings before the Areopagus, and then settled in Corinth. Having lived here for about two years, during this time he founded many churches throughout Achaia ( 1 Cor 1:1). At the end of this activity he went to Jerusalem and from here to Antioch.

At this time ap. Peter began his missionary travels outside Palestine. Having visited with Mark Fr. Cyprus, he arrived in Antioch, where Barnabas was at that time. Here both Peter and Barnabas freely visited the homes of pagan Christians and ate meals with them, although this did not entirely agree with the decree of the Apostolic Council, according to which Jewish believers were obliged to follow the ritual prescriptions of the Mosaic Law in relation to food. Peter remembered the symbolic explanation given to him regarding the conversion of Cornelius ( Acts 10:10 et seq.), and in addition, he believed that moral duties (communication with the brethren) should come before obedience to the ritual law. Barnabas, from the time of his activity among the pagans, had already become accustomed to this subordination of the ritual to the spirit of Christian love. But suddenly the Christians sent by James from Jerusalem came to Antioch. They, in all likelihood, should have found out how the decree of the Apostolic Council was being carried out in Antioch by Jewish Christians, and they, of course, made it clear to both Peter and Barnabas that they were doing wrong here, entering into fellowship at meals with Christians from pagans. This had a great effect on both, and both, in order to avoid temptation for their fellow tribesmen, stopped accepting invitations from pagan Christians to meals.

Peter's action was very important in its consequences. The pagan Christians of Antioch, who at first had joyfully received such a famous apostle as Peter, now saw with grief that he was alienating them, considering them as if unclean. This, of course, should have produced dissatisfaction with Peter in some, and a desire in others to maintain communication with him at all costs, even with the sacrifice of their freedom from the law. Paul could not help but stand up for his spiritual children and, in the knowledge that the law was no longer needed for Christians at all ( Gal 2:19,20), turned to Peter pointing out the incorrectness of his course of action, his instability. Peter, of course, himself was well aware that the law was no longer needed for Christians, and therefore remained silent on this speech of the apostle. Paul against him, showing by this that he is in complete agreement with Paul.

After this, Paul undertook a third missionary journey. This time he passed through Galatia and confirmed in the faith the Galatians, who were confused at that time by the Judaizing Christians, who pointed out the need for circumcision and the ritual law in general and for pagan Christians ( Acts 18:23). Then he arrived in Ephesus, where his faithful friends Aquila and his wife, Priscilla, were already waiting for him, probably here preparing the ground for Paul’s activities. The two or three years that Paul spent in Ephesus represent the time of the highest development of Paul's apostolic activity. At this time, a whole series of flourishing churches appeared, later presented in the Apocalypse under the symbol of seven golden lamps, in the midst of which stood the Lord. These are precisely the churches in Ephesus, Miletus, Smyrna, Laodicea, Hieropolis, Colossae, Thyatira, Philadelphia, Sardis, Pergamum and others. Paul acted here with such success that paganism began to tremble for its existence, which is confirmed by the rebellion against Paul, excited by the manufacturer of idol images - Demetrius.

However, the joy of the great apostle of tongues was darkened at this time by the opposition that his enemies, the Judaizing Christians, showed him. They had nothing against his preaching about the “cross”; they were even pleased that Paul was bringing the pagan world to Christianity, since they saw this as beneficial for the Mosaic Law. They actually strove to elevate the meaning of the law, but they looked at the Gospel as a means to this. Since Paul looked at things just the opposite, the Judaizers began to undermine his authority in every possible way among the pagans he had converted, and especially in Galatia. They told the Galatians that Paul was not a real apostle, that the law of Moses had eternal significance and that without it Christians were not guaranteed against the danger of falling into slavery to sin and vices. Because of this, the Apostle had to send a letter from Ephesus to the Galatians, in which he refuted all these false ideas. This epistle seems to have been a welcome success, and the authority of Paul and his teaching was once again established in Galatia ( 1 Cor 16:1).

Then the Judaizers turned their efforts to another field. They appeared in the churches founded by Paul in Macedonia and Achaia. Here they again tried to shake Paul's authority and lead people into suspicion regarding his purity. moral character. They were mostly successful with their slander against Paul in Corinth, and the apostle in his 2nd letter to the Corinthians armed himself with all his might against these enemies of his, ironically calling them super-apostles ( ὑπερλίαν οἱ ἀπόστολοι ). In all likelihood, these were those priests who converted to Christianity ( Acts 6:7) and Pharisees ( 15:5 ), who, proud of their education, did not want to obey the apostles at all and thought to take their place in the churches. Perhaps these are what Paul means by the name of Christ ( 1 Cor 1:12), that is, those who recognized only the authority of Christ Himself and did not want to obey any of the apostles. However, the apostle, with his first letter to the Corinthians, managed to restore his shaken authority in the Corinthian church, and his second letter to the Corinthians already testifies to the fact that his enemies in Corinth had already admitted themselves defeated (see. 1 Cor. ch. 7th). That is why Paul visited Corinth again at the end of 57 and stayed here for about three months. It is believed that the apostle had already been to Corinth twice before (cf. 2 Cor 13:2). .

From Corinth, through Macedonia, Paul went to Jerusalem with donations for the poor Christians of the Jerusalem church, collected in Greece. Here James and the elders informed Paul that there were rumors about him among the Jewish Christians as an enemy of the law of Moses. To show the groundlessness of these rumors, Paul, on the advice of the elders, performed the rite of initiation into a Nazirite in Jerusalem. By this Paul did not do anything contrary to his convictions. The main thing for him was to walk in love and, guided by love for his fellow tribesmen, leaving time for their final emancipation from the Mosaic Law, he accepted the vow as something completely external, an obligation that did not affect or change his essential convictions. This event served as the reason for his arrest and from here a new period of his life begins.

c) After his arrest in Jerusalem, Paul was sent to Caesarea to be tried by the Roman procurator Felix. He stayed here for two years until Felix was recalled (in 60). In the year 61, he appeared before the new procurator Festus and, since his case was dragging on, he, as a Roman citizen, demanded to be sent to Rome for trial. He completed his journey with significant delays and only arrived in Rome in the spring of the following year. From the last two verses of Acts we learn that he spent two years here as a captive, however, enjoying quite significant freedom of communication with his believing colleagues who visited him, who brought him news about distant churches and delivered messages from him to them (Colossians, Ephesians , Philemon, Philippians).

The book of Acts ends with this message. From here the life of the apostle can be described either on the basis of tradition, or using the guidance of some passages from his epistles. Most likely, as confirmed by the church fathers, Paul, after a two-year stay in Rome, was released and again visited the churches of the East and then preached in the west, as far as Spain. The monument to this last activity of the apostle is his so-called pastoral epistles, which cannot be attributed to any of the earlier periods of his ministry.

Since none of the Spanish churches ascribes descent from the Apostle Paul, it is probable that the Apostle Paul was captured immediately after he entered the soil of Spain and was immediately sent to Rome. The martyrdom of the apostle, which the apostle accepted on the street leading to Ostia There is now a basilica here, called S. Paolo fuori le mara.See about this in the brochure: I. Frey. Die letzten Lebensjahre des Paulus. 1910. , as the Roman presbyter Caius (2nd century) says, followed in 66 or 67, according to the historian Eusebius.

To establish the chronology of the life of the Apostle Paul, you need to use two firm dates - the date of his journey to Jerusalem with Barnabas in 44 ( Acts 12 ch.) and the date of his speech at the trial before Festus in 61 ( Acts 25 ch.).

Festus died the same year he arrived in Palestine. Consequently, Paul could have been sent by him to Rome - at the latest - in the fall of 61. The captivity of the apostle in Jerusalem, which happened two years earlier, thus followed in 59.

Paul's third missionary journey, which preceded this captivity, included the apostle's almost three-year stay in Ephesus ( Acts 19:8,10; 20:31 ), his journey through Greece with a rather long stay in Achaia ( Acts 20:3) and a trip to Jerusalem. Thus, the beginning of this third journey can be considered the autumn of 54.

The second missionary journey, through Greece, could not last less than two years ( Acts 18:11-18) and, therefore, began in the fall of 52.

The Apostolic Council in Jerusalem, which took place very shortly before this journey, probably took place at the beginning of 52 or at the end of 51.

Paul's first missionary journey with Barnabas in Asia Minor, with a two-time stay in Antioch, spanned the previous two years and began, therefore, in the year 49.

Moving further back, we come to the moment when Barnabas took Paul with him to Antioch. This was around the year 44. How much time Paul had previously spent in Tarsus, in the bosom of his family, cannot be established exactly - perhaps about four years, so Paul’s first visit to Jerusalem after his conversion can be dated back to the 40th year.

This visit was preceded by Paul's journey to Arabia ( Gal 1:18) and a two-time stay in Damascus. He himself allocates three years for this ( Gal 1:18). Thus, Paul's conversion probably took place in the year 37.

In the year of his conversion, Paul could have been about 30 years old, therefore, we can date his birth to the 7th year AD. If he died in the 67th year, then his entire life was about 60 years.

The following considerations also convince us of the correctness of this chronology:

1) Pilate, as you know, was dismissed from the post of procurator in 36. Before the arrival of the new procurator, the Jews could afford the usurper act of executing Stephen, which they would not have dared to do under the procurator, since the Romans had taken it from them the right to carry out executions. Thus, the death of Stephen could have taken place at the end of the 36th or the beginning of the 37th year, and this, as we know, was followed by the conversion of Paul.

2) The journey of Paul and Barnabas to Jerusalem regarding the famine of 44 is confirmed by secular historians, who say that under Emperor Claudius in 45 or 46, famine befell Palestine.

3) In Galatians, Paul says that he went to Jerusalem for an apostolic council 14 years after his conversion. If this council took place in the year 51, then it means that Paul’s conversion took place in the year 37.

Thus, the chronology of the life of the ap. Paul takes the following form:

7-37. The Life of Paul as a Jew and a Pharisee.

37-44. The years of his preparation for apostolic activity and his first experiences in this activity.

45-51. The first missionary journey, together with a two-time stay in Antioch, and the Apostolic Council.

52-54. Second missionary journey and church planting in Greece (two letters to Thessalonians) In Greece, in the city of Delphi, a letter from Emperor Claudius to the Delphians carved on stone is kept. In this letter, Gallio, the brother of the philosopher Seneca, is named as the proconsul of Greece, the same one to whose trial the ap was brought. Paul by his enemies, the Jews in Corinth. The famous scientist Deisman, in his article about this monument (attached to Deisman's book Paulus. 1911, pp. 159-177) proves that the letter was written in the period from the beginning of 52 to August 1, 52. From here he concludes that Gallio was proconsul in this year and probably took office on April 1, 51, or even later in the summer. Paul had already served 1½ years before Gallio assumed the proconsulship in Corinth; Consequently, he arrived in Greece and specifically in Corinth in the 1st month of the 50th year, and left here at the end of the summer of the 51st year. Thus, according to Deisman, the second missionary journey of the apostle lasted from the end of the 49th year to the end of the 51st year... But such an assumption still rests on insufficiently solid foundations. .

54-59. Third Missionary Journey; stay in Ephesus; visit to Greece and Jerusalem (epistles: Galatians, two Corinthians, two Romans).

59 (summer) - 61 (autumn). Captivity of Paul in Jerusalem; captivity in Caesarea.

61 (autumn) - 62 (spring). Journey to Rome, shipwreck, arrival in Rome.

62 (spring) - 64 (spring). Staying in Roman Bonds (epistles to the Colossians, Ephesians, Philemon, Philippians).

64 (spring) - 67. Liberation from Roman bonds, second captivity in Rome and martyrdom there (epistles to the Hebrews and pastoral).

Addition.

a) The personality of the Apostle Paul. From the circumstances of the life of the Apostle Paul, one can deduce the concept of what the personality of this apostle was like. First of all, it must be said that the spirit of any pedantry was alien to Paul. It often happens that great public figures are extreme pedants in carrying out their convictions: they do not want to take into account the reasonable demands of life at all. But ap. Paul, with all the confidence in the truth of his convictions regarding the meaning of the Mosaic law and the grace of Christ in the justification of man, nevertheless, as necessary, either performed circumcision on his disciples, or resisted it (the story of Titus and Timothy - see. Gal 2:3 And Acts 16:3). Not recognizing himself as obligated to fulfill the law of Moses, he, however, in order to avoid temptation for the Jerusalem Christians, took a vow of Nazarene ( Acts 21:20 et seq.). Likewise, the apostle makes a different judgment on the subject of food in Romans than in Colossians (cf. Rome 14 And Count 2).

For this indulgence, the apostle found strength in Christian love, which completely dominated his heart. Where there was still a possibility of salvation for people, even to the smallest extent, there he used all the efforts of a loving father or even a loving mother to save his spiritual children from destruction. Thus, he put a lot of work into converting the Galatians and Corinthians to obedience to Christ. But he was not afraid to express final condemnation to those in whom he did not see any signs of repentance ( 2 Tim 4:14; 1 Cor 5:5), who went against the very foundations of the Christian faith ( Gal 5:12). And, again, where it was only about the grief inflicted on him personally, there he always knew how to forget and forgive his offenders ( Gal 4:19) and even prayed to God for them ( 2 Cor 13:7).

Conscious of himself in everything as a true servant of God and looking at the churches built by him as his merit before the judgment seat of Christ ( 1 Tim 2:1,9 et seq., 2 Cor 6:4; Phil 2:16; 4:1 ), Paul, however, never wanted to put any pressure on them with his great authority. He left it to the churches themselves to arrange their internal affairs, having the confidence that love for Christ would keep them within certain boundaries and that the Holy Spirit would help them in their weaknesses ( 2 Cor 5:14; Rom 8:26). He, however, was not alien to what was happening that was especially important in various churches, and was present in his spirit at the analysis of the most serious church affairs, sometimes sending his decisions on these matters from afar ( 1 Cor 5:4).

At the same time, however, ap. Pavel always showed sober prudence and the ability to look at matters practically. He was extremely skillful in restraining the impulses of persons who were under the special charm of the gift of tongues. He knew how to find what to say to those Christians who, in anticipation of the imminent coming of Christ, had completely abandoned all work. He demanded from his spiritual children only what they could do. Thus, he makes less strict demands on the Corinthians in relation to marriage life than on the Thessalonians. In particular, Paul showed great prudence in the matter of his missionary calling. When he set out to educate Europe, he took advantage of those convenient roads that the Romans had either renewed or built again, and stayed in cities that, either through their trade or as Roman colonies, were in living relations with others. The latter circumstance was a guarantee that from here the Gospel would spread to new places. The apostle also showed his wisdom in the fact that he sent his best message, outlining his teaching, to the capital of the Roman Empire, and precisely before he himself was to visit Rome.

b) The results of the missionary activities of the apostle. Pavel. When ap. As Paul was going to his death, he could tell himself with consolation that the Gospel had spread throughout the entire world of that time. In Palestine, Phenicia, Cyprus, Antioch, Alexandria and Rome, it was established even before Paul, but in any case, in almost all of Asia Minor and Greece, for the first time Paul and his companions proclaimed the word about Christ. Paul and his companions founded churches in Perga, Antioch of Pisidia, Iconium, Lystra, Derbe, Troas, Philippi, Thessaloniki, Beria, Corinth, Cenchrea and other places in Achaia. Paul's disciples also founded churches in Collosi, Laodicea and Hieropolis, as well as in other areas of Asia Minor Why up. Did Paul not visit Africa and, in particular, such an important city as Alexandria? Deisman (p. 135) explains this by the fact that in 38, therefore, at the beginning of Paul’s missionary activity, persecution of the Jews began in Alexandria, and later other preachers appeared there... .

As for the composition of the churches founded by Paul and his companions and disciples, it consisted mainly of people of the lower classes of society, slaves, freedmen and artisans ( 1 Thessalonians 4:11; 1 Cor 1:26). This was also pointed out by opponents of Christianity back in the 2nd century. (Celsus and Caecilius). Even clergy and bishops sometimes belonged to the slave class. However, there were cases when noble or rich women converted to Christianity (Evodia, Syntyche, Chloe, etc.). There were also some noble men among Christians, such as, for example, the proconsul of Cyprus Sergius, Paul ( Acts 13:12); Dionysius, member of the Athenian Areopagus ( Acts 17:34), etc.

Renan in his “Life of the Apostle Paul” expresses the opinion that the composition of the Christian church under the apostle. Paul was very small - perhaps Paul's converts in both Asia Minor and Greece numbered "no more than a thousand people." One cannot agree with this opinion simply because Christianity at that time aroused serious fears against itself on the part of pagans and Hellenistic Jews, which could not have happened if Christian churches in different cities consisted, as Renan suggests, of only 10-20 each person. In addition, in Paul's letters there is a hint of a relatively large number of churches ( Gal 4:27 etc.). Among secular writers, Pliny the Younger and Lucian speak about the “many” Christians.

From the above-mentioned churches of Asia Minor, Greece and others, where Paul contributed his labors, the Gospel gradually spread throughout all countries of the world, and Mono (Monod) in his book about the apostle. Pavle (1893, 3) rightly says: " If I were asked: who among all people seems to me to be the greatest benefactor of our family, I would, without hesitation, name Paul. I do not know of any name in history that would seem to me, like the name of Paul, to be the type of the broadest and most fruitful activity".

The results of the missionary activities of the ap. Paul's work is all the more amazing because in the field of this activity he had to overcome various important obstacles. There is constant agitation against him from the Judaizers, who follow in his footsteps everywhere, turning the Christians converted by Paul against him; unbelieving Jews are also trying by all means to put an end to the missionary activity of the apostle; the pagans, from time to time, rebel against him; finally, given Paul’s illness, it was extremely difficult for him to travel, especially since he almost always walked... Nevertheless, “the power of the Lord was made perfect in Paul’s weakness” ( 2 Cor 12:8) and he overcame everything that stood as an obstacle in his way.

About the messages of St. Pavel. The Orthodox Church accepts in its canon 14 epistles of St. Pavel. Some scientists believe that ap. Paul wrote more epistles, and they are trying to find hints of the existence of the now supposedly lost messages of Paul in the epistles of the apostle himself. Pavel. But all the considerations of these scientists are extremely arbitrary and groundless. If ap. Paul seems to mention the existence of some kind of letter to the Corinthians in the 5th chapter. (v. 9), then this mention may refer to the first chapters of the 1st epistle, and those passages from Paul’s supposed epistle to the Corinthians that became known to scientists at the beginning of the 17th century. in the Armenian translation, are an obvious fake (see about this in the article by Prof. Muretov. About the apocryphal correspondence of St. Paul with the Corinthians. Theologian Bulletin, 1896, III). Under mentioned in Col 4:16“the epistle to the Laodiceans” can easily be understood as the epistle to the Ephesians, which, as a district letter, was transmitted to Laodicea, from where the Colossians were to receive it under the title “epistles from Laodicea.” If Polycarp of Smyrna as if he mentions Paul’s “epistles” to the Philippians, then again here the Greek. the word ἐπιστολάς has general meaning"message" = lat. litterae. As for the apocryphal correspondence of St. Paul with the philosopher Seneca, representing six letters of Paul and eight of Seneca, then its non-authenticity has been fully proven by science (see article by Prof. A. Lebedev. " Correspondence app. Paul with Seneca"in the collected works of A. Lebedev).

All messages from Ap. Paul are written in Greek. But this language is not classical Greek, but a living one; spoken language of that time, quite rough. His speech was strongly influenced by the rabbinical school that educated him. For example, he often uses Hebrew or Chaldean expressions (αββα̃, ἀμήν, μαρανα, θά, etc.), Jewish figures of speech, and Jewish parallelism of sentences. The influence of Jewish dialectics is also reflected in his speech when he introduces sharp antitheses and short questions and answers into his speech. Nevertheless, the apostle knew the Greek spoken language well and freely disposed of the treasury of Greek vocabulary, constantly resorting to replacing some expressions with others - synonymous ones. Although he calls himself “ignorant of words” ( 2 Cor 11:6), however, this can only indicate his unfamiliarity with the literary Greek language, which, however, did not prevent him from writing a wonderful hymn of Christian love ( 1 Cor 13 ch.), for which the famous orator Longinus ranks the apostle among the greatest orators. To the disadvantages of the up style. Paul can be attributed to the quite often encountered anacoluths, i.e. the absence of a main clause corresponding to the subordinate clause, insertion, etc., which, however, is explained by the special passion with which he wrote his epistles, and also by the fact that for the most part he wrote his epistles not in his own hand, but dictated to copyists (probably due to weak eyesight).

The letters of the Apostle Paul usually begin with greetings to the church and end different messages about yourself and greetings assigned to individuals. Some of the epistles have predominantly dogmatic content (for example, the epistle to the Romans), others mainly concern the structure of church life (1st Corinthians and pastoral), others pursue polemical goals (Galatians, 2nd Corinthians, Colossians , Philippians, Hebrews). Others can be called messages of general content, containing various of the above-mentioned elements. In the Bible they are arranged according to the relative importance of their content and the importance of the churches to which they are addressed.

Therefore, in the first place it was decreed to the Romans, in the last place to Philemon. The Epistle to the Hebrews is placed after all, as having received general recognition in relation to authenticity at a relatively late date.

In his epistles, the apostle appears to us as a faithful and caring leader of the churches founded by him or standing in relation to him. He often speaks angrily, but he knows how to speak meekly and kindly. In a word, his messages seem to be examples of this type of art. At the same time, the tone of his speech and the speech itself take on new shades in different messages. However, all the magical effect of his speech is felt, according to Johann Weiss, only by those who read his messages out loud, since the ap. Paul spoke his epistles aloud to the scribe and intended them to be read aloud in the churches to which they were sent (Die Schriften d. N. T. 2 V. S. 3). It must be added to this that the epistles of Paul are exemplary in the grouping of thoughts they contain, and this grouping, of course, required whole days and even weeks to compile each larger epistle.

Already in the first period, the Apostle Paul poses as the main subject of his Gospel the question of man’s correct relationship with God or the question of justification. He teaches that people cannot be justified before God by their own strength and that therefore God Himself shows humanity a new path to justification - faith in Christ, according to whose merits justification is given to everyone. To prove man's inability to justify himself by his own strength, the apostle, both in his speeches and in his epistles, depicts the state of man in paganism in Judaism, which (Judaism), although it was not in such darkness as paganism was, nevertheless did not feel in itself strength to follow the path of virtue, which the Law of Moses outlined for him. To explain this inability to follow the path of virtue, the apostle speaks of the power of ancestral sin that weighs on people. Adam sinned first - and from him the sinful infection spread to all humanity and was expressed in a whole series of individual sins. As a result, man became inclined to sin even where reason told him the right course of action - he, as the apostle puts it, submitted to the flesh.

But God left the pagans to their passions, and gave the Jews under the guidance of the law so that they would recognize the need for divine help. And so, when this pedagogical goal was achieved, the Lord sent a Savior to people in the person of His Only Begotten Son, who took on human flesh. Christ died for people and reconciled them with God, and it is this redemption of people from sin and death and their rebirth into a new life that the apostle considers it his duty to proclaim. Paul. A person must only believe in this and he begins a new life in Christ, under the guidance of the Spirit of God. Faith is not only knowledge, but the perception of Christ by the entire inner being of a person. It is not his work, his merit, but primarily owes its origin to the mysterious grace of God, which attracts the hearts of people to Christ. This faith gives a person justification—real justification, and not just an imputation of the righteousness of Christ. A person who believes in Christ becomes truly reborn, a new creation, and no condemnation weighs down on him.

The society of justified believers forms the Church of Christ or the Church of God, which the Apostle compares either to a temple or to a body. In fact, however, the Church does not yet represent its ideal realized. It will reach its ideal state or glorification only after the second coming of Christ, which, however, will not occur before the Antichrist comes and the final defeat of evil is accomplished.

In the second period (and last) the teaching of the ap. Paul takes on a predominantly Christological character, although the apostle often reveals those thoughts expressed in the epistles and speeches of his earlier ones. The face of the Lord Jesus Christ is characterized here as the face of not only the Redeemer, but the Creator and Provider of the universe. Even after His incarnation, He did not lose His Sonship of God, but only entered into a new form of existence, human, which, however, after the resurrection of Christ, was replaced by a new one - glorified. Together with the glorification of the God-man, man in general is reborn and enters into that close communion with God that he once possessed. Man’s true homeland is now not the earth, but the sky, where Christ is already seated. To especially prove the greatness of Christianity to his fellow Jewish Christians, Paul portrays (in the Epistle to the Hebrews) Christ as exceeding in power the angels who participated in the giving of the Sinai law and Moses, the lawgiver.

As for moral precepts and decrees regarding the order of church life, they are almost evenly distributed across all epistles. For the most part, moralizing thoughts come in the messages after the dogmatic or polemical section, representing, as it were, a conclusion from dogmatic teaching.

Ap. Paul as a theologian had an extremely great influence on the development of Christian theology. He was the first to express those Christological teachings that were subsequently revealed in the epistles of other apostles, in the Gospels and the first works of Christian writing of the second century. In the teaching on temptation, Paul was influenced by Irenaeus, Tertullian, Hippolytus, Clement of Alexandria and apologists, Augustine and other later theologians. But the question arises: how original and independent is Paul’s teaching? Was he not himself influenced by Hellenic philosophy or at least rabbinic theology? Many researchers say that if the first assumption cannot be considered probable, then the second is very plausible... Is this really so?

First of all, Paul's dependence on rabbinic theology should be reflected in the exegetical method. But a careful comparison of the rabbinic interpretations and the Pauline interpretations reveals a significant difference between the two. Firstly, the rabbis, explaining the Holy Scripture, certainly wanted to find in it a justification for the religious and ritual opinions of Judaism. The content of the Bible was thus already determined in advance. To do this, they performed extremely inappropriate operations on the text, interpreting it mainly in a typical allegorical way. The Apostle, although he accepts the traditions of the Jewish church, but not in their rabbinic coloring, but as the property of the entire Jewish people, who kept them in their memory. He takes them only to illustrate his points, without giving them independent significance. If he allows, in places, an allegorical interpretation, then his allegories actually take on the character of prototypes: the apostle looked at the entire history of the people of God as transformative in relation to the history of the New Testament and explained it in the messianic sense.

Next. In his teaching about Christ, Paul is also independent of Jewish-rabbinic opinions. For the Jews, the Messiah was not only not an eternal being, but was not even the first manifestation of the will of God to save people. Before the world, says the Talmud, there were seven things, and the first of these things was the Torah. The Messiah-Deliverer seemed to be only the highest embodiment of the idea of ​​legality and best performer law. If the law is fulfilled well by people, then there is no need for a special Messiah... For the Apostle Paul, Christ, existing from eternity as a full divine person, is the cornerstone of the entire edifice of redemption.

This alone already indicates that Paul’s teaching about Christ and the rabbinic teaching about the Messiah are diametrically opposed! Further, Paul also differs from the rabbis in his understanding of the atonement. According to the rabbis, a Jew himself could achieve real righteousness - for this he only had to strictly fulfill the law of Moses. The Apostle Paul said the exact opposite of this, arguing that no one can be saved by their own strength. The Messiah, according to the rabbinic view, must appear to the Jews who have justified themselves before God, in order only to crown their righteousness, to give them, for example, freedom and power over the whole world, and according to the Apostle Paul, Christ came in order to grant humanity justification and to establish a spiritual kingdom on earth.

Paul's teaching differs from the rabbinic in other points: on the question of the origin of sin and death, on the question of the future life and the second coming of Christ, on the resurrection of the dead, etc. From this we can correctly conclude that the apostle developed his teaching himself on the basis of the revelations that came to him, adjoining what came to him from the gospel of Christ through other apostles and preachers - witnesses of the earthly life of the Savior....

Aids for Studying the Life of the Apostle Paul:

a) patristic: John Chrysostom "7 words on the Apostle Paul".

b) Russians: Innocentia, archbishop Khersonsky. Life of the Apostle Paul; prot. Mikhailovsky. About the Apostle Paul; prot. A. V. Gorsky. History of the Apostolic Church; Artabolevsky. About the first missionary journey of the Apostle Paul; priest Glagolev. 2nd great journey ap. Paul preaching the Gospel; hierome Gregory. 3rd Great Journey of the Apostle Paul.

c) foreign in Russian. Renan. Apostle Paul. Farrar. Life of the Apostle Paul(in translations by Matveev, Lopukhin and Father Fiveysky). Vrede. Ap. Paul Among those translated into Russian, the following works about the life of the Apostle Paul are remarkable: Weinel. Paulus, der Mensch und sein Werk(1904) and A. Deissmann. Paulus. Eine kultur und religionsgeschichtliche Skizze, with a beautiful map "The World of the Apostle Paul" (1911). The book was written vividly by Prof. Knopf "a. Paulus (1909). .

On the theology of the Apostle Paul, you can read the extensive and thorough dissertation of Prof. I. N. Glubokovsky. The Gospel of the Apostle Paul according to its origin and essence. Book 1st. Petr., 1905; and Kn. 2nd. Petr., 1910. All literature about the Apostle Paul in different languages ​​until 1905 is listed here. The book by Prof. is also useful here. Simone. Psychology ap. Pavel(translated by Bishop George, 1907) Nösgen’s article is interesting and important from an apologetic point of view. Der angebliche orientalische Einsclag der Theologie des Apostels Paulus. (Neue Kirchliche Zeitschrift, 1909, Heft 3 and 4).

Comments on Chapter 11

INTRODUCTION TO THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS

GOD REVEALS TO US IN MANY WAYS

People have never had a common view of religion. “God,” said Tennyson, “reveals himself to us in different ways.” And George Russell put it this way: “There are as many ways to climb to the stars as there are people who dare to climb to them.” One famous and beautiful saying says: “God has His own key to every heart.” In general terms, four concepts of religion can be distinguished.

1. For some people, religion is it is inner friendship with God. This is such a union with Christ that we can say that the Christian lives in Christ, and Christ lives in the Christian. This is how Paul understood religion. For him, religion was what mysteriously united him with God.

2. For others, religion is the model by which they should build their lives and the strength that allows them to achieve this model. This is how James and Peter viewed religion. They saw in religion a model according to which they should build their lives, and it gave them strength to achieve this model.

3. Others see religion satisfaction of your intellectual searches. Their mind searches and searches until they realize that their mind can rest in God. Plato also says that an unexamined life is not worthy of living. There are people who must either understand or perish. The first chapter of the Gospel of John represents the world's greatest attempt to satisfy the demands and demands of the human mind.

4. There are also people for whom religion is a path that leads into the presence of God. She removes barriers and opens doors to Him. This is exactly how the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews understood religion. He was completely absorbed in this thought. In Jesus he found the One who could bring him into the immediate presence of God. IN Heb. 10.19-23 a great idea about religion is presented.

“Therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter into the sanctuary through the blood of Jesus Christ, a new and living way, which He again revealed to us through the veil, that is, His flesh... Let us approach with a sincere heart, with full faith...”

TWO WAYS OF THINKING

The concept of the author of Hebrews fit into both contemporary modes of thinking. On the one hand, this is the Greek way of thinking. Even from Plato, that is, for five centuries, the consciousness of the Greeks was preoccupied with the contradictions between the real and the unreal, the visible and the invisible, the transitory and the eternal. It was the Greeks who had the idea of ​​the existence somewhere of a real world, of which our world is only a weak reflection. Plato believed that somewhere out there there was a world of perfect forms, ideas, or samples. Plato said: “The Creator of the world planned his creation and carried it out according to an imperishable and eternal pattern, of which this world is a copy.” Philo of Alexandria, who borrowed his ideas from Plato, said: “God knew from the very beginning that an excellent copy could be made only by having an excellent example, and that objects, having decided to create this visible world, He first created an ideal world in order to create an objective corporeal world according to an incorporeal and divine pattern." Cicero spoke about the laws known to people and applied by them on earth: “We have nothing remotely similar to real law and true justice; what we have is only a shadow and crumbs.”

This idea of ​​the existence of a real world somewhere out there, of which our world is an imperfect copy, can be found among all thinkers of antiquity. In this world we can only guess and search by touch; here we can only work with copies and imperfect objects. And all real and real objects are located in a world invisible to us. On the tombstone of the famous theologian there is a Latin inscription: “Away from shadows and appearances to the truth.” If this is so, then it is quite obvious that the purpose of our life in this world is to get away from shadows and imperfection and reach reality. And this is precisely what the author of Hebrews claims, that Jesus Christ gives us such an ability. The writer of Hebrews tells the Greeks, "All your life you have been trying to escape the shadows and come to the truth. Jesus Christ is giving you the opportunity to do this."

JEWISH WAY OF THINKING

But the author of Hebrews also shares Jewish way of thinking. In Judaism it was dangerous to approach God. “Man,” God said to Moses, “cannot see Me and live.” (Ex. 33:20). Jacob was extremely surprised at Penuel: “I saw God face to face, and my soul was preserved.” (Gen. 32:30). When Manoah realized who his guest was, he said to his wife in horror: “Surely we will die; for we have seen God.” (Judges 13:22). One of the most important religious holidays of the Jews was the Day of Atonement. Only on this day did the high priest enter the Holy of Holies, where, according to the Jews, God lived. No one except the high priest ever entered the Holy of Holies, and only on that day. The law made it clear that when the high priest entered the Holy of Holies, he should not remain there long, “lest he bring terror upon Israel.” It was dangerous to enter into the presence of God; anyone who stayed there too long could be killed.

That is why the idea of covenant. God, in His mercy and without any merit on the part of the Jews, turned to the people of Israel and invited them to enter into a special relationship with Him. But this special relationship was conditioned by compliance with the law given to him. In a dramatic scene in Ref. 24.3-8 it shows how the people of Israel entered into this relationship and accepted this law.

From that moment on, Israel had access to God, but only if he follows the law. Breaking the law is sin, and sin erected a barrier between Israel and God and denied them access to Him. And to remove this obstacle, the entire system of Levitical priesthood and sacrifices was created. God gave Israel a law; people sinned; therefore a barrier arose between Israel and God; sacrifices were made to remove barriers to God. But life has shown that sacrifice is not able to do this. This served as proof that the whole system of ongoing sacrifices was hopeless. This battle was doomed to defeat and its very goal - to eliminate the barrier between man and God erected by human sin - was unattainable.

THE PERFECT PRIEST AND THE PERFECT SACRIFICE

The people needed the perfect priest and the perfect sacrifice. What was needed was someone capable of making a sacrifice to God that would once and for all open the way and access to Him. And that is exactly what Christ did, says the author of Hebrews. He is a perfect high priest because He is both a perfect man and a perfect God. In His human form He brought people to God, and in His divinity He brings God to people. There is no sin on Him. The perfect sacrifice He offered to God is Himself - a sacrifice so perfect that it never needs to be offered again.

To the Jews, the author of Hebrews said, “You have been looking all your life for the perfect priest who could offer the perfect sacrifice and give you access to God. You have received Him in Jesus Christ and in Him alone.” And to the Greek the author of Hebrews said: “You are looking for the way from shadows to reality: you will find it in Jesus Christ.”

Jesus was the One who opened people's access to reality and to God - this is the main idea of ​​​​this message.

THE RIDDLE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT

Everything is clear so far. All other questions that arise in connection with the study and interpretation of the Epistle to the Hebrews are shrouded in mystery. E. F. Scott wrote: “The book of Hebrews is in many respects the puzzle of the New Testament.” We can only guess the answers to the questions when it was written, to whom and who wrote it. The history of this message shows how the mystery surrounding it led to it being treated with caution and suspicion. It took a long time before the message was finally and indisputably included among the books of the New Testament. In the Muratorian Canon, compiled around 170, it is not mentioned at all. The great scholars of Alexandria, Clement and Origen, knew and loved him, but agreed that his place among the books of Holy Scripture was debatable. As for the North African Church Fathers, Cyprian never mentions it, and Tertullian knows that its place among Scripture is disputed. Eusebius, the Church historian, said that among controversial books, this epistle stands out for its high qualities. It was not until the time of Athanasius, in the mid-fourth century, that the Epistle to the Hebrews was finally included in the New Testament, but even Luther was not completely convinced of the correctness of this decision. It is strange that this important document waited so long for recognition!

WHEN WAS IT WRITTEN

We can only glean information about this from the message itself. It was undoubtedly written in an era that can be called the second generation of Christianity (2,3). Events are presented to the listeners by those who themselves heard the Lord. To the people addressed by this message, the Christian faith was not new; in all likelihood, they must have been mature people and trained listeners (5,12). They must have had a long history because the author refers to events from days past (10,32). Behind them was a great past and heroic martyrs to which they had to look and draw inspiration. (13,7).

In establishing the date of the message, the first thing that can help us is the mention of persecution. It is clear from the message that at one time their mentors and leaders died for their faith (13,7). The addressees of the message themselves have not yet been persecuted, because they “have not yet fought to the point of blood” (12,4). It is also clear that they experienced suffering because they had to “accept the plunder of their property” (10,32-34). In general, the message gives the impression that the recipients are in danger of persecution. Based on this, we can say with confidence that the message was written in the period between two waves of persecution: in days when Christians were not directly persecuted, but were not loved among their fellow countrymen.

The first persecution of Christians took place in 64, during the time of Nero, and the second in 85, under Emperor Domitian. Somewhere between these two dates the book of Hebrews was written, most likely closer to the reign of Emperor Domitian. In all likelihood, the message was written around the year 80.

TO WHOM WAS THE MESSAGE WRITTEN?

And here we too must limit ourselves to the information and hints that we find in the message itself. One fact is clear - the message could not have been written to a large church community, for then its name would not have completely disappeared from memory. First let's stick firmly to what we know. The message was written to a church community that had a long history (5,12), which at some time in the past suffered persecution (10,32-34). It was written to a church that had great times and great teachers and preachers. (13,7). It was written to a church that was not founded by the apostles themselves (2,3), a church distinguished by its generosity and open-mindedness (6,10).

The message also contains a direct hint. Among the greetings that conclude the message we find the following sentence: “The Italians greet you.” (13,24). [Barkley: "Those who come from Italy greet you"]. Taken separately, this phrase can mean that the letter was either sent from Italy, or V Italy; it is more likely that it was written V Italy. Suppose a person writes a letter from Leningrad abroad, he probably will not write: “Everyone from Leningrad greets you,” but rather: “Everyone in Leningrad greets you.” If he is abroad and there are other Leningraders with him, he may well write: “All Leningraders greet you.” Therefore we can say that the message was written to Italy, and if so, then it is very likely that it was written in Rom.

But, quite clearly, it was not written to the entire Roman church, then it would never have lost its name. Further, it gives the impression that it was written to a small group of like-minded people, probably a group of scientists. From 5,72 we see that they studied and prepared for a long time to become teachers of the Christian faith. In addition, reading the book of Hebrews requires such knowledge of the Old Testament that it could only have been written by a learned scholar.

Putting it all together, the book of Hebrews was written by a major preacher and teacher of the Church to a small group or school of Christians in Rome. He was their teacher. But at the moment he was away from them, and since he was afraid that they were leaving the path of faith, he wrote this message. It's not so much a message as it is a conversation. It does not begin as a letter from Paul, although it ends with a greeting, like any letter. The author himself calls it a word of exhortation, a sermon.

WHO WAS THE LETTER WRITTEN?

Apparently, the most intractable issue is the issue of authorship. And it was precisely this uncertainty that was the reason that they did not dare to include it in the New Testament. In those days it was simply called "Jews." No authorship was attributed to him; no one connected him directly with the name of the Apostle Paul. Clement of Alexandria admitted that it was written by Paul in Aramaic, and Luke translated it because the style was completely different from Paul's. Origen famously said, “Only God knows who wrote the book of Hebrews.” Tertullian considered Barnabas its author. Jerome said that the Roman Catholic Church did not consider it to be the epistle of Paul and went on to say: “Whoever was the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews...”. Augustine treated him the same way. Luther stated that Paul could not have been its author because he had a different way of thinking. Calvin said that he could not bring himself to believe that this epistle was written by the Apostle Paul.

Throughout the history of the Church, no one has ever seriously accepted that Paul wrote the book of Hebrews. But how did the message get its name? It happened very simply. When the New Testament was finally taking shape and taking on its modern form, disputes arose about which books to include in it and which not. To make the final decision, a check was carried out: was the book or letter written by an apostle or a person who had close relationships with the apostles? By this time the book of Hebrews was known throughout the Church. Many, like Origen, who believed that God alone knew who wrote it, read and loved this epistle and wished for it to be included in the New Testament. This could only be done by including it along with the thirteen letters of the Apostle Paul. Hebrews took its place among the books of the New Testament because of its own greatness, but to be included it had to belong to the letters of Paul. People even then knew well that it was not written by Paul, but they considered it Paul’s, because no one knew its author and it had to be included in the New Testament.

AUTHOR OF HEBREWS

1. Tertullian believed that Barnabas wrote it. Barnabas was a native of Cyprus; The Cypriots were known for their excellent Greek language, and the book of Hebrews was written in the best Greek in the New Testament. Barnabas was a Levite (Acts 4:36) and had among the writers of the New Testament the most precise knowledge of the priesthood and sacrifice, on which the epistle is based. He was called "son of consolation" in Greek paraclesis: the author of Hebrews also calls the epistle a word exhortations, paraclesis (13,22). Barnabas was one of those few who were accepted by Jews and Greeks because he was familiar with both the Jewish and Greek ways of thinking. Perhaps Barnabas really wrote this letter, but why then did his name disappear from its pages?

2. Luther believed that Apollos was the author of Hebrews. According to the New Testament, Apollos was a Jew, originally from Alexandria, an eloquent man and versed in the Scriptures (Acts 18:24; 1 Cor. 1:12; 3:4). The man who wrote Hebrews was well versed in the Scriptures and eloquent; he thought and argued like the educated inhabitants of Alexandria. Undoubtedly the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews was a man similar in origin and way of thinking to Apollos.

3. A romantic guess was expressed by Harnack, a prominent German theologian. He suggested that these could be the thoughts of Aquila and Priscilla. They were teachers (Acts 18:26). Their home in Rome was a church (Rom. 16:5). Harnack believes that this is why the letter begins without greetings and why the name of the author disappeared - the main part of the message was written by a woman, and she did not have the right to teach.

But even after considering all the guesses and assumptions, we are forced to say, as Origen said seventeen centuries ago, that only God knows who wrote the Epistle to the Hebrews. For us, the author remains only a voice; but we can thank God for the work of this great nameless one, who with incomparable skill and beauty wrote about Jesus, who is the way to reality and the way to God.

CHRISTIAN HOPE (Heb. 11:1-3)

For the writer of Hebrews, faith is absolute confidence in the truth of its subject matter and that what is hoped for will come to pass. It is not hope that looks into the future with a melancholy desire; hope looks to the future with passionate conviction. In the era of early persecution, a simple, humble man was once brought before a judge. He told the judge that he would not back down or waver in his faith because he was convinced that if he was faithful to God, God would be faithful to him. “Do you really think that people like you will ascend to God and His glory?” “I don’t think so,” he replied, “I know.” At one time Bunyan was tormented by doubts. “Everyone considers their religion to be the only true one,” he said, “both Jews, Muslims, and pagans; but what if all our faith and Christ and the Holy Scriptures are also just such a conclusion?” But when the light of truth dawned on him, he ran out shouting: “Now I know! Now I know!” Christian faith is hope turned into confidence.

And this Christian hope guides all human behavior. He lives in it and he dies in it; and only this possession allows a person to act as he should.

Moffat identifies three aspects of the Christian faith.

1. This is faith in God, despite everything worldly. If we live according to worldly standards, we can well ensure our well-being, comfort and peace; if we live according to God’s standards, we may well feel the pain, loss and dislike of people. Christians are convinced that it is better to suffer than to prosper with the laity. In the Book of Daniel there is a story about how Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were given a choice - either to obey Nebuchadnezzar and worship the royal idol, or to obey God and be thrown into a fiery furnace. Without the slightest hesitation they chose God (Dan. 3). When John Bunyan was tried for preaching an unauthorized sermon, he said, “Before I went to court, I prayed to God that if I could do more good at liberty than in prison, may I remain at liberty if but no, may His will be done.” Christians approach this issue this way: in terms of eternity, it is better to sacrifice everything for the sake of God than to believe in earthly rewards.

2. This is faith in the spirit, despite the feelings. The senses tell a person: “Take everything that you can take and get, what you can touch and what you can enjoy.” Feelings whisper to a person to seize the moment of luck; the spirit says that there is something beyond this. The Christian believes in the spirit rather than in the feelings.

3. This is faith in the future, despite the present. Once upon a time, Epicurus said that the most important thing in life is pleasure. But what he meant by this is not at all what so many people think. He insisted that people look forward: what is pleasant to us now may bring us suffering later; what causes us terrible pain now can bring us joy later. The Christian is convinced that ultimately, man cannot destroy the truth, for “great is the truth and in the end it will triumph.”

At first glance it may seem that Socrates was killed by his judges and that Pontius Pilate crushed Christ, but history delivered a completely different verdict: it acquitted Jesus and Socrates and condemned their judges. Fosdick said somewhere that Emperor Nero once sentenced the Apostle Paul to death, but years passed and the time came when people gave their sons the name Paul, and their dogs the name Nero. They may simply object: “Why should I give up pleasure in the present for the sake of an uncertain future?” To this Christianity answers: the future is not uncertain, because it belongs to God; and it is enough that God has commanded and God has promised.

The author of Hebrews goes further and says that God approved the great ascetics of the faith precisely because they lived in accordance with these principles. They all renounced what the world calls greatness and put their entire trust in God - and history has proven them right.

But the author goes even further: he states that faith is also the conviction that God created this world and that the visible world came from the invisible world. This attack was directed against the prevailing belief that God created the world from existing but naturally imperfect matter, which in turn assumed that this world was imperfect from the very beginning. The author of Hebrews insists that God did not work with existing matter, but created the world out of nothing. In stating this, he was not thinking about the scientific side of the problem, he only wanted to emphasize that this world is God's world.

If we can understand this, then two consequences follow from this for us: firstly, we will treat this world accordingly. We will try to use everything that is in this world the way God would want it. Secondly, we will remember that although it is not always obvious at first glance, God controls this world in a certain way. When we believe that this world is God's world, a new sense of responsibility and a new understanding of the world awakens in our lives, because everything belongs to God and everything is in His hands.

FAITH IN A SACRIFICE PLEASANT TO GOD (Heb. 11:4)

The author begins the honorable list of those who believed in God with Abel, whose story is outlined in Life 4.1-15. Cain worked the land and offered God a sacrifice from the fruits of the land. Abel tended the flocks and made a sacrifice to God from the firstborn of his flock. God gave preference to the sacrifice of Abel over the sacrifice of Cain, and the latter, prompted by terrible envy, killed his brother and became an exile and a wanderer on earth. The original Hebrew text of the Bible makes it difficult to understand this entire story. It says nothing about why God chose Abel's sacrifice over Cain's. It may very well be that a person must sacrifice to God, in essence, only his most precious possession. And this is - human life itself. And among the Jews, blood has always been a symbol of life. This is understandable because as the blood drains from the body, so does the life. Based on this, the only true sacrifice to God was the sacrifice of blood. Abel's sacrifice was from a living creature, but Cain's was not; therefore, Abel's sacrifice was more acceptable to God.

We can learn two important truths from this story: first, it talks about envy. Already the ancient Greeks saw its terrible danger. Demosthenes, for example, spoke about this as follows: “Envy is a sign of a completely vicious human nature”; and Euripides said: “Envy is the most dangerous of the diseases common among people.” The Greeks even had a saying: “Envy has no place in God’s choir.” Envy causes bitterness, bitterness leads to hatred, hatred leads to murder. Envy can poison a person’s entire life and kill all good feelings in him. Second, this story conveys the eerie feeling that God has revealed a new sin. One of the ancient Greek Fathers of the Church said: “Before that moment more than one person had died, so Cain should have learned what it was to kill. The Devil taught him this in a dream.” It was Cain who brought murder into the world. A curse awaits the sinner, but an even greater curse awaits the one who teaches another to sin. Such a person, like Cain, is expelled from the presence of the Lord.

So the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews says: “Even though he is dead, he still speaks to us.” Moffat comments on this: “Death is not the last word in the life of a righteous person. When a person leaves this world, he leaves behind some part of himself. He may leave behind something that will grow and spread like a cancerous tumor, but he can also leave behind something that will bloom and flourish indefinitely." A person leaves behind either a good or a bad influence; Every person, even dying, continues to speak. May the Lord grant us the opportunity to leave behind not the seeds of evil, but the sprouts of good, in which the people who follow us will find blessing.

WALK BEFORE GOD (Heb. 11:5-6)

In the Old Testament, Enoch's entire life is summarized in one sentence: "And Enoch walked with God; and he was not, because God took Him." (Gen. 5:24). WITH Many legends were also associated with this name. He was considered the first master tailor, who also taught people how to properly cut animal skins to sew clothes. It was believed that he was the first to teach people how to make shoes to protect their feet. It was believed that he was the first to use pen and paper for writing and taught people from books.

The simple statement of fact in the Book of Genesis carries with it a certain mystery. It says nothing about Enoch dying; but only: after the period had passed, he quietly and calmly left this world, without seeing death. God took Enoch to Himself when he was still young to save him from the infection of this world. This means that God loved Enoch so much that he took him before age and vice laid their hands on him.

The great Jewish commentator on the Bible, Philo of Alexandria, considered Enoch a great example repentance. Repentance led him from a godless life to a life that walks before God.

From the simple fact of Enoch's life as stated in the Old Testament, the writer of Hebrews concludes that he did not die at all and that God in some mysterious way took him to Himself. In an age of depravity and sin, Enoch walked with God. It was because he walked before God, while other men were moving away from Him, that Enoch drew nearer to Him every day, and the rapture was the step that brought him into the immediate presence of that God before Whom he had been walking all along.

When we think of Enoch, we necessarily think of a different attitude towards our earthly end. The absolute serenity reflected in the account of Enoch in the Old Testament foreshadows the Christian attitude toward death. Death is inevitable and fighting against it will bring nothing.

Christians see death transition - not the end, but only a stage along the way; not a door that closes, but a door that opens. There are people for whom, like Enoch, death is an entry into the direct presence of the One with whom they have lived for so long. If we have lived with Christ, we can die confident that we are going where we will be with our Lord forever.

1. We must believe in God. Without this there can be no faith or religion at all. Faith and religion arose when people realized the existence of God; they stop when there is no more room for Him in their lives.

2. We must believe that God is interested and attentive to us. As the writer of the message put it, we must believe that God is a rewarder of those who seek Him.

In the ancient world, there were people who believed in the existence of gods, but in their minds, these gods lived somewhere far away, in the space between the worlds, completely unaware of people. “God,” Epicurus distinguishes the main feature of God, “does nothing.” Many people today believe in God, but do not believe that He does not treat them indifferently. Someone said that an astronomer cannot be an atheist, but someone also said that an astronomer necessarily believes that God is a mathematician, and that God, if He is a mathematician, does not need to think or care about anyone or anything. or. People called God the first cause, the first principle, the creative force, the life force. This is what people believe in God, but not in God who cares about us.

When Marcus Aurelius was asked why he believed in the gods, he answered: “It’s true, the gods are indistinguishable to the human eye, but I haven’t seen my soul either, and yet I honor it. So I believe in the gods, and I honor them, because I felt their power again and again." It was not logic, but life that convinced him of the existence of gods. Seneca also said: “The main thing in the worship of the gods is to believe that they are gods ... and to know those gods who sit above the world, because their power and strength govern the world and contribute to the safety and well-being of all mankind, while caring for each individual person." Epictetus said this: “You should know that the most important thing in the worship of the gods is the true belief that they exist and that they rule the world justly and well.”

We must believe not only that God exists, but also that He cares and cares for us and is directly involved in the life of humanity. This is not difficult for Christians: for God came into the world in the form of Jesus Christ to tell us how much He cares about us.

THE MAN WHO BELIEVED IN THE REVELATION OF GOD (Heb. 11:7)

The Old Testament story of Noah is told in Life 6-8. The world was so corrupt and depraved that God had only one choice - to destroy it. He told Noah His decision and taught him how to build an ark in which he could escape with his entire family and representatives of all created animals. Noah respectfully and obediently took God at his word, and thus was saved during the flood.

Noah, even more than Abel and Enoch, appears in our eyes as a believer.

1. Noah took God at his word. He believed in the revelation God had given him. At that moment, God's revelation may have seemed absurd, but Noah believed in it and sacrificed everything for its fulfillment. It is clear that if Noah was going to accept God's revelation, he had to lay aside all his normal work and concentrate his efforts on fulfilling the revelation given to him. Noah's life was one of constant and diligent work to fulfill God's command.

Every person once faces a choice: to heed the revelation of God given to him and fulfill it, or to neglect it. He can build his life without attaching any importance to the revelation of God, or, on the contrary, considering its fulfillment as the most important thing in the world. You can put it another way - Noah took God’s warning very carefully, and it was this attitude that saved him from death. God's warning comes to us in many ways. It can come from our consciousness; or from the words of God addressed directly to our soul; or it is expressed in the advice or reproach of a good and pious person. It may come from the Bible or come to us during a sermon in church. But no matter where it comes from and no matter how it reaches us, we only expose ourselves to terrible danger if we neglect it.

2. Noah was not afraid of the ridicule of the people. When the sun was shining in the sky, his behavior and work must have looked stupid, to say the least. Has anyone else ever built a huge ship on land far from the sea? A person who listens to the word of God often looks like a fool in the eyes of people by his actions.

One has only to remember the times of the birth of the Christian Church. One man meets another and says to him, “I have decided to become a Christian.” And he answers: “Do you know what they do to Christians? They are put in prison, thrown to be torn to pieces by wild animals, crucified, burned alive.” To this the first one answers him: “I know all this.” And the second one says to him hopelessly: “You must be crazy.”

Perhaps one of the most severe tests of a Christian lies precisely in this, that we must often be ready to act like madmen, in the name of Christ. We must never forget that one day His friends came to Him and tried to take Him home because they thought He was crazy. What is wisdom in the eyes of God often seems like madness to people.

3. Noah's faith was also a condemnation for others. This is why, in at least one sense, it is dangerous to be a Christian. It is not that the Christian is confident that he is right; it is not that he is inclined to judge others; It’s not even that he constantly finds faults in others, declaring: “I told you so.” The fact is that simply by being a Christian, a person condemns Other people. Alcibiades, a brilliant but wild young Athenian, said to Socrates: “Socrates, I hate you because every time I see you, I see what I am like.” Aristides was one of the most remarkable Athenian citizens and was even called the Just. And yet the Athenians voted to expel him. When one Athenian was asked why he did this, he replied: “Because I am tired of hearing Aristides called “the Just.” There is danger in virtue itself because in its rightness there is already a condemnation of evil.

4. Noah was righteous through faith. It just so happened that it was he who was named for the first time in the Bible dikaios, righteous (Gen. 6:9). His virtue lay in the fact that he took God at his word. When others turned a deaf ear to God's warnings, Noah listened to them; when others mocked God, Noah honored Him. They said about Noah that “he cast aside worldly skepticism for the sake of a bright faith in God, which brought him deliverance.” In an age when people did not respect God, for Noah He remained the highest reality in the world.

RISK AND PATIENCE WHICH FAITH REQUIRES (Heb. 11:8-10)

God's call to Abraham is stated in Life 12.1 s brevity bordering on dramatic. Abraham persistently sought God and was not satisfied with the idolatry of his people. And therefore, when the call of God reached him, he was ready to go into the unknown and find it! Abraham is an example of the highest faith.

1. Abraham's faith was ready to face the unknown. The call of God meant that Abraham had to leave home, family and his trade: and yet he went. He had to go into the unknown: and yet he went. Even the best of us have a certain amount of timidity. I wonder what will happen to us if we take God at his word and act according to His covenants and promises.

Bishop Newbigin talks about the negotiations that led to the formation of the United Church of South India. He took part in these negotiations and the lengthy discussions that accompanied them. Delays were often caused by the fact that overly cautious people always wanted to know in advance where their next step would lead, until finally the chairman reminded them that a Christian has no right to ask where he is going.

Many of us lead very careful lives, based on the utmost importance of safety and security, but to be a Christian requires a certain reckless readiness for dangerous adventures. Faith that clearly sees every step of the future path is not real faith. A Christian must sometimes follow the path to which the voice of God calls him, not knowing what the consequences of such a step are. Like Abraham, he must set out on a journey without knowing where it leads.

2. Abraham's faith was patient. When Abraham even reached the promised land, he was not allowed to possess it. He was forced to wander through it, a stranger and without a permanent home, just as all his people later had to wander in the desert. For Abraham, God's promises were never fully realized, and yet he did not abandon his faith.

Even the best of us are in a constant rush. Waiting is even harder than taking risks. The hardest time is the waiting time. The moment of decision is a wave of excitement and deep emotion; the moment of goal achievement and accomplishment - a blaze of glory and satisfaction. In the time between making a decision and achieving a goal, a person needs the ability to patiently wait, work and observe when it seems like nothing is happening at all. It is at these moments that we so often forget and abandon our hopes, abandon our high ideals and plunge into apathy and dead illusions. The hope of a believer shines brightly on him and he always makes incredible efforts to achieve his goal, even in moments when there is nothing left to do but wait.

3. Abraham's faith was directed beyond the boundaries of our mortal world. A man has never accomplished great things unless he first saw a vision that gave him strength to overcome the difficulties and disappointments that came his way. And Abraham was given a vision, and even while his body was wandering in Palestine, his soul was at home with God. God cannot give us any vision unless we let Him in; but if we wait for Him, even in the deserted places of our mortal world, He will send us visions, and with Him all the worries and worries of the journey will disappear.

FAITH IN THE IMPOSSIBLE (Heb. 11:11-12)

The story of the son promised to Abraham and Sarah is told in Life 17.15-22; 18.9-15; 21.1-8. The whole miracle lies in the fact that Abraham and Sarah were ninety years old, when a person has long been unable to conceive or give birth to a child; and yet, according to ancient history, such a promise was given to them and it was fulfilled.

Abraham and Sarah's response to this promise was very complex.

1. At first there was complete distrust. When Abraham heard the promise, he fell on his face and laughed (Gen. 17:17). When Sarah heard about him, she "laughed inwardly" (Gen. 18:12). When a person hears God's promise for the first time, he often decides that it is too good to be true.

There is nothing in all creation like the love of God. People are amazed beyond belief by the fact that He could love us so much, suffer for us so much, and die for us. This is why Christian witness is called good news. This is so good, so good news that it is almost impossible to believe that it is true.

2. Then their understanding began to awaken. Disbelief began to give way to glimmers of understanding that God was speaking to them; and God cannot lie. The Jews had a cardinal rule: a teacher should never promise his students anything that he either could not do or would do reluctantly; to do so meant from the very beginning to accustom students to the fact that their word could be broken. If we remember what promise he gave us God, we will understand that no matter how amazing it may be, it must still be true.

3. And finally they found the ability to believe in its possibility. It was humanly inconceivable that Abraham and Sarah could have children. As Sarah put it: "...who would say to Abraham, 'Sarah will suckle the children?' (Gen. 21:7). But, by the grace and power of God, the impossible became apparent. This contains both a challenge to a person and something that elevates him. When we hear how people make plans, discuss and think out loud, we see how many things in this world people desire, but refuse many things, considering it impossible to achieve it. People spend most of their lives trying to place limits on the power and authority of God. Faith is the ability to grasp His mercy, which is sufficient to make everything humanly impossible become divinely possible. With God everything is possible, and therefore, in the vocabulary of a Christian and the Christian Church there is no place for the word impossible.

STRANGERS AND ALIENS (Heb. 11:13-16)

No patriarch was given the opportunity to take possession of the promises God made to Abraham. Until the end of their days they remained nomads and never lived a settled life in one country. They always had to move forward. They illustrate some important enduring truths.

1. They have always been wanderers. To characterize them, the author of the message uses three very vivid Greek words.

a) B Heb. 11.13 he calls them Xenoi. Xenoi means stranger, foreigner. In the ancient world, the fate of strangers and foreigners was difficult. They were looked at with hatred, suspicion and contempt. In Sparta the word xenoi was equivalent to the word barba-ros, barbarian. One man complained in a letter that he was despised "because I Xenoi". Another believes that it is better to live in one’s homeland, no matter how poor it may be, than epi xenes, in a foreign country. When the company held a feast, those who came to the feast were divided into their And xenos. Xenos may even mean refugee, emigrant. The patriarchs were strangers in a country that was never their own.

b) B Heb. 11.9 the author uses the word in relation to Abraham paroikein, alien. Paroikein name was permanent resident stranger. This was also the name given to the Jews when they were captives in Babylon and Egypt. On the social scale parokos stood not much taller than a slave. He had to pay a special tax on strangers. He always remained a stranger and could only become a member of the community for a special monetary contribution.

c) B Heb. 11.13 the author uses another word pare-pidemos. Parepidemos - a person living temporarily here, that is, his home was in another place. Sometimes his stay was strictly limited. Parepidemos was a lodger, a renter, a man who did not have his own home where his life took him. All their lives, the patriarchs did not have a country that they could call their home, their homeland. It should also be noted that living in a foreign country was considered humiliating in those ancient times; in every country ancient world they treated the stranger with hostility. The Epistle of Aristaeus says: “It is a wonderful thing to live and die in one’s own country; in a foreign land, contempt awaits the poor man, and shame awaits the rich, because everyone secretly believes that they were expelled from their native city for the evil committed there.” In the Book of Wisdom of the son of Sirach (29,25-31) There is an impressive passage:

"Better is the life of the poor under a plank roof,

than luxurious feasts in strangers houses.

Be happy with little, as you are with many.

Bad life - wander from house to house,

and where you settle, you won’t even dare to open your mouth.

You will serve food and drink without gratitude;

and besides, you will also hear something bitter:

"Come here, stranger, prepare the table,

and if you have anything, feed me."

“Go away, stranger, for the sake of an honorable person;

my brother came to visit me, I need a home."

It is difficult for a person with a feeling of reproach for sheltering in a house

and reproach for the favor."

This is how it was at all times, and this is how it is today: the stranger in a foreign country is unhappy; but in ancient times the bitterness of humiliation was also added to this.

And the patriarchs remained strangers in all their days V life. Tertullian said this about a Christian: “He knows that he has a pilgrimage on earth, but that his dignity is in heaven.” And Clement of Alexandria said: “We have no fatherland on earth.” And Augustine said: “We are strangers expelled from our fatherland.” The point is not that Christians were completely “not of this world,” consciously cut off from the life and actions of this world, they simply always remembered that they were on a journey. There is an unrecorded saying of Jesus Christ: “The world is a bridge. The wise will cross it, but he will not build his house on it.” The Christian looks upon himself as a wanderer for eternity.

2. Despite all this, they never lost their vision or their hope. No matter how long they had to wait for this dream to come true, it always shone in their eyes. No matter how long this path may be, they never leave it. Robert Louis Stevenson said: “It is better to travel with hope than to arrive at your destination.” They never abandoned their wanderings; no matter how tired they were, they lived in hope and died in anticipation.

3. Despite all this, they never wanted to go back. Their descendants, while wandering in the desert, often had a desire to return to a prosperous life in Egypt. But not the patriarchs: they took this path and it never occurred to them to turn back.

In aviation there is such a concept - the point of irreversibility - the moment when the direction of engine thrust can no longer be reversed: the fuel supply has reached such a level that the engine can continue to operate only in the same specified mode. The tragedy of our lives lies precisely in the fact that too many people turn on their path too early. One more effort, a little more patience, a little more hope - and the dream will come true. Once a Christian has begun to carry out the work sent to him by God, he must know that there is no turning back, that he has already passed the point of irreversibility.

4. These people could move forward because in their thoughts and dreams they saw a different world. A person obsessed with the love of travel is drawn forward by the thought of countries that he has not yet seen. A great artist is driven by the thought of performing his role as never before and by the desire to make a very special impression on the audience and listeners. Stevenson has a story about a cowman who spent his entire life in the dirt of a barnyard. When asked if he was tired of all this, he replied: “He who thinks about the eternal world has no time to get tired.” The patriarchs also had thoughts about eternal peace - may we have them too.

5. Such were these people, and God was not ashamed that He was called their God. Above all, He is the God of valiant adventurers. He likes people who are willing to put everything on the line in His name. A calculating person who puts comfort and well-being above all else is the complete opposite of what God loves. A person who goes into the unknown and does not deviate from his chosen path will ultimately reach God.

THE HIGH SACRIFICE (Heb. 11:17-19)

The story of Isaac as told in Life 22.1-18, is one of the most dramatic descriptions of the ultimate test to which Abraham was subjected - the requirement to sacrifice the life of his only son. This story has in some ways brought disrepute upon itself. It is excluded from the religious education program because it is believed to give a wrong idea of ​​God. Others believe that the main point of the story is that Abraham learned from this event that God does not need human sacrifices. Without a doubt this is true. But if we want to look at this story from its the best side or through the eyes of the author of the message, we must take it at face value - such as it is: this is the answer of the man who was required to sacrifice his own son to God.

1. This story clearly shows that we must be willing to sacrifice what is most dear to us for the sake of our faithfulness to God. Many sacrificed their careers to what they believed was God's will. J. P. Struthers was a minister of the Reformed Presbyterian Church in Greenock, a small congregation which had a great past but no future. If he had decided to leave the church of his fathers, all the pulpits of the country would have been open to him, he could have made the most brilliant career in the church, but he sacrificed all this, fulfilling, as he believed, the calling and will of God.

Sometimes a person must sacrifice his personal relationships. He hears the call of God to carry out a difficult task in places unattractive to people, and it happens that the girl he loves, his bride, does not want to go there with him. And a person must make a choice between the will of God and relationships so dear to him. While in prison, Bunyan thought about what awaited his family if he was executed. He was especially haunted by the thought of the little blind daughter so dear to his heart: “Oh,” he said, “I saw that I was bringing down my house on the heads of my wife and my children; but I must do it; I must.”

Yes, Abraham was a man who would sacrifice even the most precious things in life to God. This often happened in the early Christian Church: one of the spouses became a Christian, and the other did not. The sword fell on their houses, and if there were no people for whom Christ was dearer than everything and everyone in the world, there would be no Christianity in the world today.

God must, first of all, come into our lives, or He will not come to us at all. There is a story about two children who were given a toy - Noah's Ark. They listened to stories from the Old Testament and decided to make a sacrifice too. They carefully examined all the animals in the ark and finally made their choice on a sheep with a broken leg. They could only sacrifice a broken toy, which they could easily do without anyway. In the same way, many people are ready to make a sacrifice to God; but only the dearest and the best are worthy of being sacrificed to God.

2. Abraham is an example of a person who is ready to accept even what he cannot understand. This incomprehensible demand is addressed to him. Logically, it made no sense: Abraham was given the promise that in Isaac his seed would grow and grow until it became a mighty nation in which all other nations would be blessed. The entire promise depended on Isaac's life, and now, apparently, God wanted to take that life. As John Chrysostom put it: “It seemed as if the works of God were warring against the works of God, and faith was warring with faith, and covenants were warring with promise.” In the life of every person there is something that defies any causal explanation and logical analysis. And here is where a person fights the hardest battle of his life - to accept when he cannot understand. At such a moment, there is only one thing left - to obey and do it without indignation or feelings of resentment, with the words: “God, You are love! On this I build my faith.”

3. Abraham is an example of a man who found a way out when God tested him. If we take God at his word and risk everything for Him, even if there seems to be nothing but a blank wall in front of us, the way out will open to us.

FAITH THAT CONQUERS DEATH (Heb. 11:20-22)

These three examples of faith have one thing in common: they speak of the faith of people close to death. The blessing given by Isaac is mentioned in Life 27,28.29.39.40. Isaac said: “Behold, I am old; I do not know the day of my death.” (Gen. 27.2) and gave a blessing that sounds like this: “May God give you from the dew of heaven and from the fatness of the earth, and plenty of bread and wine. May the nations serve you, and may the tribes worship you.” Jacob's blessing is given in Life 48.9-22, after the message that "the time has come for Israel to die" (Gen. 47.29), and it sounds like this: "... may my name be called upon them and the name of my fathers Abraham and Isaac, and may they grow into a multitude in the midst of the earth" (Gen. 48:15.16). Events from the life of Joseph are given in Life 50.22-26. When his hour of death was near, Joseph cursed the children of Israel not to leave his bones in Egypt, but to take them with them when they went to the Promised Land, which they did in due course. (Ex. 13:19; Joshua 24:32).

The writer of Hebrews wants to point out here that three of the patriarchs died without seeing the promised land and the greatness of the people of Israel that God had promised them. Isaac was still a nomad. Jacob was still an exile in Egypt; Joseph achieved greatness, but it was also the greatness of a foreigner in a foreign country, and yet they never doubted that the promise would be fulfilled. They died with hope, not despair.

And in this moment of lasting greatness. All these people had one thought: “God’s promise will come true because He never breaks His promise. I may not live to see it come true, death may befall me before this promise becomes a reality, but I am a link.” in its fulfillment: it depends on me whether it will be fulfilled or not.” This is the great task of life: our hopes may never be realized, but we must live in such a way as to hasten their realization. It may not be possible for everyone to partake fully of the promise of God, but everyone can live in faith to hasten the day when others will come in and partake of it. We all have the great task of helping God fulfill His promises.

FAITH AND ITS SACRAMENT (Heb. 11:23-29)

In the minds of the Jews, Moses was the greatest figure in history. This was the leader who freed them from slavery and received from God the law of their life. To the author of Hebrews, Moses was an outstanding example of a man of faith. In the story of Moses, Moffat notes, there are five different acts of faith. Many legends were associated with the name of Moses, as well as with the names of other patriarchs included by the author of the message in the honorary list of those faithful to God, and the author, undoubtedly, relied on them too.

1. First, the story of the faith of Moses' parents in Ref. 2.1-10. IN Ref. 1.15-22 It is told that the king (Pharaoh) of Egypt wanted in his hatred to destroy the children of Israel, ordering them to be killed right during childbirth. The legend tells that Amram and Jochebed, the parents of Moses, were alarmed by the decree of Pharaoh, and Amram removed his wife from him not because he did not love her, but because he wanted to save her from such a fate - seeing children killed ; and she was not with him for three years. But three years later, Miriam predicted: “My parents will have another son who will free Israel from the hands of the Egyptians.” And she said to her father: “What have you done? You sent your wife away from your house because you did not believe the Lord God that He would protect the children who would be born to you.” And Amram, ashamed that he did not trust God, returned his wife to him and in due time Moses was born.

He was such a cute child that his parents decided to hide him in their house and hid him there for three months. But then the Egyptians planned a terrible thing: Pharaoh ordered to find all the hidden children and kill them. When one child hears the cry of another, he also begins to cry, so Egyptian women with children were sent to the houses of the Jews and they pricked their children with needles until they began to cry. Because of this, the children of the Jews began to cry, they were found and killed. Seeing this, Amram and Jochebed made a reed basket, put Moses in it, and placed him in the reeds near the bank of the Nile.

The very fact that Moses was born at all was the result of an act of faith; his salvation was the result of another act of faith.

2. Moses' second act of faith was his faithfulness to his people. The story of this is told in Ref. 2.11-14. Once again, legends help us shed light on this story. After Moses was placed in a basket in the reeds near the bank of the Nile, he was found by Pharaoh's daughter, whose name was Bithiah or Thermouthis. She was delighted with the beauty of the child, and according to legend, the Archangel Gabriel hit the baby hard on the ears when she pulled the basket out of the water so that he would cry and touch the heart of Thermoufis, who saw a small face wrinkled with grief and eyes full of tears. Fermoufis was childless and therefore took the baby Moses into her house and cared for him as if she were her own son. Moses grew and became so beautiful that people turned around when they saw him on the streets, and even forgot their work. He was so smart that he was far ahead of all the children in learning and knowledge. When Moses was still a child, Thermoufis brought him to Pharaoh and told him how she found him. She put Moses in the arms of Pharaoh and Pharaoh was so fascinated by him that he hugged him and promised, at the request of his daughter, to appoint him as his heir. As a joke, the pharaoh took his crown and put it on the baby's head, but the child tore the crown from his head, threw it on the ground and began to trample it with his feet. The sages of Pharaoh predicted that this child would one day trample under foot the royal power. They wanted to kill him right there on the spot, but then they decided to test him first. One dish with precious stones and another with burning coals were placed in front of him; if he reaches out to precious stones, it means he is very smart and poses a great danger; if he reaches out his hand to the burning coals, it means he is very stupid and does not pose any danger. The boy Moses was about to reach out to the dish with precious stones when the Archangel Gabriel put his hand on the coals. Moses burned his fingers, and then he put the burnt fingers in his mouth and burned his mouth, which is why, the Jews said, he was not speechless. (Ex. 4:10), and stuttered all my life.

And thus Moses was saved. He was raised and raised in luxury, and was the heir to the kingdom. He became one of the greatest Egyptian military leaders. In particular, he defeated the Ethiopians when they threatened Egypt, and then married an Ethiopian princess. But all this time, Moses did not forget his brothers, the sons of Israel, and the day came when he decided to throw in his lot with the oppressed Jews and said goodbye to the secure royal future that awaited him.

Moses sacrificed earthly glory for God's chosen people. Christ sacrificed His glory for the salvation of mankind and took upon Himself scourging, shame and terrible death. Moses at one time shared the suffering of Christ, choosing the path of faith, which led to suffering, instead of the peace that gave him earthly glory. He knew that earthly rewards were contemptible compared to God's ultimate reward.

3. And the day came when Moses, having intervened in a quarrel between two Jews and defended the weak, was forced to flee from Egypt to the land of Midian (Ex. 2:14-22). Apparently this is mentioned by the writer of Hebrews in 11,27 the passage we are examining. Some researchers consider this passage difficult because from the text of the Bible (Ex. 2:14) it follows that Moses fled to the Midianites out of fear of Pharaoh, while the Epistle to the Hebrews says that he left Egypt without fear of the king's wrath. There is, in fact, no contradiction here. The simple fact is that the writer of Hebrews saw the story deeper. For Moses, going to the Midianites was not an act of fear, but an act of courage. This act demonstrated the courage of a man who has learned to wait.

The Stoics were wise people. They believed that a person should not pointlessly risk his life, provoking the wrath of a tyrant. Seneca wrote: “A wise man will never provoke the wrath of powerful people; he will step aside from them, just as a sailor will not flirt with danger at sea during a storm.” At that moment, Moses might have been able to stay and continue his line, but his people were not yet ready for this. If Moses had recklessly and boldly continued his policy, he would have simply sacrificed his life, and deliverance from Egyptian captivity would never have taken place. He was big enough and bold enough to wait until God said, “Behold, the hour has come.”

Moffat quotes this saying: “To leave the work in which you are completely engrossed, and to remain light-hearted in idleness, doing the will of God, is the rarest and highest courage in the world, and it can only be founded on and supported by the clearest spiritual vision.” When our warrior instincts tell us: “Forward!” you need to be a strong and courageous person to be able to wait. In general, a person has a fear of missing out on his opportunity; but greatness lies precisely in waiting for the moment predetermined by God, even if it seems to us that we are missing our opportunity.

4. And the day came when Moses had to make all the preparations for the first Passover. The story about this is given in Ref. 12.12-48. It was necessary to prepare unleavened bread, slaughter the lamb, anoint the doorposts and lintels with the blood of the lamb, so that the angel of death could see the blood and pass by and not kill the firstborn in him. But the most amazing thing, according to the text of the book of Exodus, was that Moses not only fulfilled all these commands on the night when the children of Israel left Egypt, but also decreed that this ritual should be carried out annually at all times. In other words, he never for a moment doubted the success of the whole undertaking, never doubted that his people would be led out of Egypt and one day reach the Promised Land. On the one hand there was a huge crowd of unfortunate Hebrew slaves, ready to go through an unknown desert to an unknown promised land, and on the other, the whole power of Egypt pursuing them on their heels, and yet Moses never doubted that God was safe and sound. safety will guide them through all the tests. This is the greatest example of man's faith that if God commands His people to do something, He will give them the strength to do it. Moses knew well that God does not call His servants to accomplishments and then leave them to their fate. God is with us every step of the way.

5. Then there was a passage through the Red Sea, which is described in Ref. 14. We read there how the children of Israel were given the opportunity to miraculously cross over the waters of the sea, which swallowed up the Egyptians who tried to do the same.

It was at this point that Moses' faith was transmitted to his people and led them forward when they were ready to turn back. Before us is the faith of a leader and an entire people, ready to try to accomplish the impossible at God’s command and realizing that even the most difficult obstacles can be overcome if God is with us, helping us in this. As one book says well: “The point of life is to overcome barriers, and not to lie down in front of them and cry.” Moses had faith that removed seemingly insurmountable obstacles from his path because he was confident that God would help those who refused to turn back and boldly walked forward.

Finally, this passage speaks not only of the faith of Moses, but also about the source of his faith. IN 11,27 it is said that he could overcome difficulties like a man who sees the Invisible One. The outstanding feature of Moses is his close intimacy with God. IN Ref. 33.9-11 we read how he entered the tabernacle: “And the Lord spoke to Moses face to face, as one speaks to his friend.” IN Number 12.7-8 We read about how the Lord defended him when others were ready to rebel against Moses: “I speak to him mouth to mouth.” In short, the secret of Moses' faith was that he knew God personally. He approached each of his tasks after first being in the presence of God.

It is said that Napoleon remained alone in his tent before every important battle; he called his military leaders to him one by one, and when they came to him, he did not say a word to them, looked into their eyes and shook their hands; and they went out, ready to die for their beloved commander. This was also the attitude of Moses towards God. Even Moses' faith came from knowing God so well. When we set about our task, having returned directly from the presence of God, we are sure to master it. Our failures and our fear are often due to the fact that we try to do everything ourselves. The secret of the valiant and successful life is to be with God before you talk to people.

FAITH THAT DETERMINES HUMAN ACCOMPLISHMENT (Heb. 11:30-31)

To this day, the author of Hebrews cites as an example the faith of the great patriarchs who lived before the Jews reached the Promised Land. And now he cited two most important episodes from the era of the struggle of the children of Israel for their place in Palestine.

1. First, it recalls the fall of Jericho. This strange old story is given in Iis. N. 6.1-20. Jericho was a strong and fortified city, and its inhabitants locked themselves in, preparing for a long siege. The city seemed impossible to take. But the Lord commanded the Jews to walk around the city once a day for six days; ahead, in front of the ark, seven priests were to walk with jubilee trumpets. On the seventh day, after everyone had walked around the city for the seventh time, the priests were to blow the jubilee trumpets, and the people were to cry out in a loud voice: “and the wall of the city will collapse to its foundations.” As the old story says, that's exactly what happened.

This story left an indelible mark on the memory of the Jewish people. Many centuries later, Judas Maccabeus and his men attacked the city of Kaspin, whose inhabitants were so convinced of the impregnability of their fortress that they laughed at Judas’s soldiers. “But those who were with Judas, calling for help from the great Lord of the world, who, without battering machines and guns, destroyed Jericho in the time of Jesus, brutally rushed to the wall. With the help of God, they took the city.” (2 Macc. 12:13-16). People never forgot the great things God had done for them, and when great efforts were needed, they prepared themselves by remembering them.

The author of Hebrews reminds us of this: the capture of Jericho was the result of an act of faith. He was taken by people who thought not about what they could do, but about what God could do for them. They were willing to believe that God could give their apparent weakness the ability to accomplish an incredible task. After the defeat of the great Spanish Armada, the British erected a monument in the city of Plymouth with the inscription: “God sent His winds and they were scattered.” When the English saw how the storm and squalls scattered the great armada of the Spaniards, they said: “God did this.” When we are faced with an important and urgent task, we must always remember that God is our Ally on whom we can always rely. What we cannot do alone, we can always do with Him.

2. The story of Rahab is given in Iis. N. 2.1-21. The spies sent by Joshua to find out the situation in Jericho stopped for the night in the house of the harlot Rahab. She protected them, helped them escape, for which she and her family were saved during the general massacre. It is necessary to emphasize here this amazing fact that the memory of Rahab was so firmly imprinted on the people of Israel. Book of Jacob (2,25) cites it as an example of what great achievements faith propels a person to. The rabbis were happy and proud if they could trace their descent from her. And even more amazing is the fact that her name is mentioned in the genealogy of Jesus (Matt. 1.5). Clement of Rome also cites her as an outstanding example of a person who saved “by faith and hospitality.”

By mentioning Rahab, the author of the letter wants to emphasize that she, despite everything, believed in the God of Israel. She said to the spies to whom she gave shelter: “I know that the Lord has given this land to you;... for the Lord your God is God in heaven above and on the earth below.” (Joshua N. 2:9-11). While she was saying this, no one could have imagined that the children of Israel would capture Jericho. These nomads who came from the desert had neither battering machines nor guns. And yet, Rahab believed - and risked her whole life in doing so - that God would make the impossible possible. Although common sense might tell her that the Jewish cause was hopeless, she also had an unusual sense of seeing beyond the obvious. true faith and those who come over to the side of the Lord when it seems that His cause is doomed to defeat have true courage.

The Christian believes that a person who takes the side of God will never lose a battle: even if he suffers earthly defeat, victory and reward await him in heaven.

VALORABLE KNIGHTS OF FAITH (Heb. 11:32-34)

The author's thoughts are still turned to the past and more and more new names of heroes of the past emerge in his memory. He does not list them in any particular order, but, as you can see, if you look at the outstanding qualities of each of them, they are all connected by a common thought.

The story of Gideon is given in Court. 6 and 7. Together with three hundred soldiers, Gideon defeated the vastly superior Midianites and Amalekites at a time when they were terrorizing Israel. This victory resounded for centuries. The story of Barak is told in Court. 4 and 5. Inspired by the prophetess Deborah, he gathered ten thousand young men and marched against the terrifying and greatly outnumbered Canaanites, who also had nine hundred iron chariots, and won an almost improbable victory. If such a parallel can be drawn, it was as if a motley, almost unarmed detachment of infantrymen had destroyed a tank division. The story of Samson is given in Court. 13-16. Samson always fought alone. Alone, but unusually strong, he repeatedly performed in extremely unfavorable conditions for him and emerged victorious. He was the scourge of the Philistines. The story of Jephthah is given in Court. 11 and 12. Jephthah, an illegitimate, was forced to live the life of an exile and renegade, but when Israel began to be threatened by the Ammonites, the forgotten renegade was called back and won a great victory, although he had to pay for his vow to the Lord with the happiness of his daughter. The author also recalls David, who was once a shepherd and who, to the surprise of everyone, and his own, was anointed to the kingdom, before all his brothers (1 Kings 16:1-13); and Samuel, whom his mother gave birth to when already in old age (1 Samuel 1) and who lived separately, as the only strong and believing person in God, among a people who were constantly in fear, dissatisfied and rebellious. He also remembers the prophets, who testified to God, each in his own way, but all full of faith.

All these people have one thing in common - all of them, in extremely unfavorable conditions, boldly looked danger in the eye. They did not believe that God was on the side of large armies, and they were willing to take huge and terrible risks. They cheerfully, boldly and confident of success accepted the tasks assigned to them by God, which, according to human concepts, seemed completely impossible to complete. They were never afraid to be alone and were not afraid to face great difficulties and overcome them in order to serve the Lord. The honorable list of history contains the names of those who chose to join the ranks of the minority faithful to God instead of the mortal majority.

Next, the author of Hebrews spoke in short, clear phrases about the deeds of those overthrown by these and similar people. They may not make a sufficient impression on many of us, for one simple reason - Each of these phrases evokes in the reader’s memory pictures of the past unknown to us. For those who know the Scriptures well in the Greek translation, these phrases ring alarm bells in their heads. So, for example, the phrase conquered kingdoms conveyed in the original Greek by the word that Josephus, the Jewish historian, used in relation to David. In a phrase did the truth characterized by David in 2 Kings 8.15; and the phrase stopped the lions' mouths - betrayed by the word used in relation to Daniel in Dan. 6.22; phrase extinguished the power of the fire goes back to the story of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in Dan. 3.19-28. In a phrase avoided the edge of the sword the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews directed the readers' thoughts to the story of Elijah's salvation from death. (3 Kings 19:1-9) and Elisha (2 Kings 6.31 seq.). Trumpet sound of phrases were strong in the war And drove away the alien regiments reminded readers of the enduring glory of the Maccabean era.

Phrase strengthened from weakness evokes many associations. She can bring to mind the image of Hezekiah's healing after he turned his face to the wall, preparing to die (2 Kings 20:1-7). Or maybe in the era when the message was written, this phrase reminded readers and listeners of an old but terrible episode from the book of Judith, one of the apocryphal books. During the time described in the book of Judith, Israel was threatened army Nebuchadnezzar under the leadership of the military commander Holofernes. Residents of the Jewish city of Bethului wanted to surrender the city within five days, because food supplies and water were running out. And in this city lived a widow named Judith. She was rich and beautiful, but lived alone and in mourning since the death of her husband Manasseh. She, dressed in her best dresses, convinced the residents to let her out of the city and headed straight to the Assyrian camp. She achieved a meeting with Holofernes and assured him that she saw the reason for the defeat of her people: this was their punishment for their sins, and she volunteered to secretly lead Holofernes and his army to Jerusalem; and having won the trust of Holofernes, she killed him, sleeping in a drunken sleep, with his own dagger, cut off his head and brought it back to the city. The traitors who were preparing the surrender of the city were forced to remain silent and the threatened defeat turned into a joyful victory. A woman's weakness turned into strength that saved her country.

The author of the message seeks to reawaken courage and a sense of responsibility in his listeners and readers, reminding them of their past. He does this not directly and sharply, but with extraordinary subtlety and skill. He does not so much remind them as, with subtle hints, he guides their thoughts to the necessary memories. When we lose courage, we need to remember the past and regain our courage. The hand of the Lord has not become shorter over time; His power and authority have not diminished. What He once did, He can do today, for the God we believe in today has accomplished everything we can remember.

COMPLETE CONSPIRACY OF SUFFERING (Heb. 11:35-40)

The author does not observe generally accepted historical periodicity and mixes in one passage episodes from different historical eras, taking other illustrations from the Old Testament, but most are from the era of the Maccabees, which falls on the period between the Old and New Testaments.

Let us first consider illustrations that can be explained using the Old Testament. From the life of Elijah (1 Kings 17,17 seq.) and Elisha (2 Kings 4.8 seq.) we learn how the power and faith of the prophets restored women to the lives of their dead children. B 2 Steam. 24.20-22 we read about how the prophet Zechariah was stoned by his own people for telling him the truth. According to legend, Jeremiah was also stoned in Egypt by his fellow tribesmen. According to Jewish legend, Isaiah was sawn into pieces. The good king Hezekiah died, and Manasseh ascended the throne. He worshiped idols and tried to get Isaiah to take part in idolatry and approve of it. Isaiah refused and was cut into pieces with an ordinary saw. When his enemies tried to force him to renounce his faith, he invariably showed them open disobedience and predicted their death and condemnation. “And while the saw was cutting into his flesh, Isaiah did not utter a word of complaint or shed a tear, but he did not cease to communicate with the Holy Spirit until the saw cut him in half.”

The author of the message refers even more often to the terrible days of the struggle of the Maccabees. Every Christian should be somewhat familiar with this era of struggle, because if the Jews had abandoned their faith during those bloody times, Jesus could not have come. The history of this struggle is as follows.

Around 170 BC, King Antiochus Epiphanes sat on the Syrian throne. He was a good ruler, but he loved everything Greek too much and saw himself as a missionary of the Greek way of life. He tried to introduce this in Palestine and was even somewhat successful in this: a certain part of society was ready to accept Greek culture, Greek drama, Greek sports games. Greek athletes trained naked, and some Jewish priests went so far as to remove the sign of circumcision from their bodies in order to look just like the Greeks. But with his actions, Antiochus caused a split among the people: most of the Jews remained unshakable in their faith and could not be convinced. Violence has not yet been used against anyone.

But in 168 things came to a critical point. Antiochus had his own interests in Egypt and raised an army and invaded the country. But the Romans ordered him to go back, and by this they cruelly humiliated him. They didn't even send armies against him: Rome was so strong that he didn't even need to do that. The Romans simply sent Senator Popilius Laenus with a small and completely unarmed retinue to Antiochus. Popilius and Antiochus met on the Egyptian border. They talked. They both knew Rome well and were even on friendly terms. Then Popilius gently told Antiochus that Rome wanted him to finish his campaign and return home.

Antiochus replied that he would think about it. Then Popilius took his staff and, drawing a circle on the sand around Antiochus, said quietly: “Think now; you must tell me your decision before you step outside this circle.” Antiochus thought for a minute and realized that he could not express open disobedience to Rome. "I'll go home," he said. The king was incredibly humiliated and turned home, beside himself with anger. On his way back he attacked Jerusalem and captured it almost without effort. They say that 80 thousand Jews were killed and 10 thousand were sold into slavery. But that was not all - he plundered the Jerusalem temple and took everything with him: the golden altars of showbread and the incense altar, the golden candlestick, the golden vessels, even the veil and veils. The temple treasury was plundered.

But that was not all. On the altar of burnt offering, Antiochus sacrificed pork to Zeus and turned the temple chambers into a brothel. Everything was done to desecrate the temple. But Antiochus went even further: he completely prohibited circumcision and the keeping of the Holy Scriptures and the law. He ordered the Jews to eat unclean meat and make sacrifices to the Greek gods. Wardens walked around the country to monitor the implementation of these orders. And those who were found to have violated them “suffered great suffering and cruel torment; for they were beaten with sticks and their bodies were torn to pieces, they were crucified while they were still living and breathing. They strangled those women who circumcised their sons, and their sons, too, as the king ordered, were hanged by the necks, as if they were hanging on a cross. And if the sacred book of the law was found, it was destroyed, and those from whom these books were found also died a painful death" (Josephus: "Jewish Antiquities." " 12.5.4). Never in history has there been such a brutal attempt to destroy the religion of an entire people.

It is very easy to imagine how the above passage was read in the context of the terrible events of those days. There are famous stories in the Fourth Book of Maccabees that were undoubtedly before the eyes of the writer of Hebrews as he recounted the sufferings that befell people of deep faith.

According to the first of them, Eleazar, a priest who had already reached old age (2 Macc. 5-7), was brought to King Antiochus and, under threat of the most terrible punishments, was forced to eat pork. But he still refused to eat. “We, Antiochus,” he said, “live in accordance with the divine law, and we consider that there is nothing higher for us than obedience to our law.” He refused to carry out the king's order, "no, even if you pluck out my eyes and burn my members in the fire." He was stripped naked and scourged with whips, and the messenger stood next to him and said: “Obey the king’s instructions.” His flesh was torn by whips, blood flowed through his body and his ribs were visible through the wounds. He lost consciousness and fell; one of the soldiers kicked him hard in the stomach, forcing him to stand up. In the end, this even caused surprise and compassion among the guards. They invited him to bring them cooked meat himself, not pork, which he could eat only by pretending that he was eating pork. But he again refused. “In this way, I myself will become an example of disrespect for piety for young people if they can eat unclean meat, citing me.” After all this they threw him into the fire, burning him with the help of terrible and intricate weapons and pouring stinking liquids into his nostrils." And he died like this, saying: "I die from fiery torment for the law."

Another story tells of seven brothers (2 Macc. 8-14). They, too, were faced with the same choice and threatened with the same punishments. They were threatened with "wheeling and racking, slingshots and cauldrons of boiling water, hot frying pans and Spanish boots, burning ash and other terrible executions." The elder brother refused to eat unclean meat. He was beaten with whips and tied to a wheel until all his limbs were twisted and broken. “They piled up a pile of fuel and, having lit a fire, raised it even higher on the wheel. The whole wheel was covered in blood, and the pile of coals went out under drops of dried blood and pieces of meat flew from this car.” But he endured the torment and died in faith. The second brother was tied to a slingshot and put on gloves with spikes. “These wild animals, fierce as panthers, first tore off all the meat from his veins with iron gloves and pulled them to his chin, then tore the skin from his head.” And he also died in faith. Then they brought the third brother forward. “The centurion, enraged by his courage, ordered him to be hung on a rack, his arms and legs to be twisted, torn out of their joints, and his members to be torn into pieces. They broke his fingers, arms, legs and elbows.” Then they completely tore him apart with a slingshot and skinned him alive. And he also died in faith. They cut out the tongue of the fourth brother and then subjected him to the same torture. The fifth brother was tied to a wheel, his body stretched along the edge, and, having been attached to a slingshot with iron chains, they tore him into pieces. The sixth was broken on the rack "while he was being roasted from below. Then sharp iron rods were heated and applied to his back and, piercing his sides with an awl, his entrails were burned." The seventh was simply fried alive in a huge frying pan. And they also died in faith.

This is what the author of the message was thinking about, and it would be good for us to remember all this. It was thanks to the faith of such people that the Jewish religion was not completely eradicated. What would happen to God’s plans if this religion were eradicated? How could Jesus be born into the world if the Jewish religion ceased to exist? We can say with firm conviction that we owe our Christianity to the martyrs of the era when Antiochus tried to purposefully

Commentary (introduction) to the entire book of Hebrews

Comments on Chapter 11

There is no other book in the Scriptures about the author of which there would be so much controversy and the inspiration of which would be so indisputable. Conybear and Howson

Introduction

I. SPECIAL MECTO IN THE CANON

Hebrews is unique in the NT in many ways. Its beginning is completely uncharacteristic of the epistolary genre, which cannot be said about the end; it is quite obvious that it was sent either to Italy or from Italy (13:24) and was addressed to a specific group, in all likelihood, Jewish Christians. It has been suggested that it was originally addressed to a small house church and for this reason was not known to large and famous congregations who would have preserved traditions about its origin and addressee. The style of the Epistle is the most literary of all the books of the New Testament. It is poetic, full of quotations from the Septuagint. The author of the Epistle had a large vocabulary and strictly adhered to the rules of the Greek language regarding tense forms of the verb and other details.

Being in some sense very Jewish(it is often compared to the book of Leviticus), writing is very important for Christendom as a warning against leaving the true essence of the death of Christ for empty religious ritual.

The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews is unknown, although in many editions of the Synodal Translation of the Bible the name of the Apostle Paul is present in the title of the book. In the early Eastern Church (Dionysius and Clement, both from Alexandria) it was suggested that the author of the Epistle was Paul. After much hesitation, this point of view prevailed (starting with Athanasius), and in the end the West agreed with it.

However, in our time it is unlikely that anyone would argue that the author of the Epistle was Paul. Origen admitted that content the letters, as well as some details, were characteristically Pavlovian, but the style of the original is completely different from Paul’s style. (This, however, is not excludes the possibility that Paul was its author, because a literary genius can change his style.) Over the centuries, authorship has been attributed to seven different people: Luke, whose style is very similar to that of the Epistle and who was well acquainted with Paul's preaching; Barnabas, Silas, Philip and even Aquila and Priscilla.

Luther suggested that the author was Apollos, a man who was capable of writing a book of similar content and style: he knew the Scriptures of the OT very well and mastered the art of eloquence (he was from Alexandria, which was famous for its school of rhetoric). The argument against this theory is that this is not mentioned in any Alexandrian legend, which would hardly have been possible if a native of Alexandria had written this Epistle.

For some reason, the Lord found it necessary to leave the author's name unknown. It may well be that it was Paul who wrote this letter, but deliberately concealed his authorship due to the prejudice the Jews had towards him. And therefore, no one in all the centuries has added anything to the words of Origen, spoken in antiquity: “Who wrote this Epistle, only God knows with certainty.”

III. WRITING TIME

Despite the fact that Human, the writer of the Message is unknown, time its spelling can be determined quite accurately.

External evidence suggests its appearance in the first century, since this book was used by Clement of Rome (circa 95). Although Polycarp and Justin Martyr quote from the Epistle, they do not name the author. Dionysius of Alexandria cites Hebrews as the work of Paul, Clement of Alexandria states that Paul wrote the letter in Hebrew and Luke translated it. (However, the book itself does not look like a translation.) Irenaeus and Hippolytus believed that Paul was not the author of the Epistle, while Tertullian believed that Barnabas was the author.

Based on internal evidence gives the impression that the author is a second generation Christian (2.3; 13.7), so it is unlikely that it was written Very early, say, simultaneously with the Epistle of James or 1 Thessalonians (cf. 10:32). Since there is no mention of the Jewish Wars (which began in 66 AD) and, apparently, sacrifices were still being performed in the temple (8:4; 9:6; 12:27; 13:10), this letter was written before 66 AD And, without any doubt until the destruction of Jerusalem (70 AD).

Persecution is mentioned, but the believers “have not yet fought to the point of blood.”

If the letter was sent to Italy, then due to the bloody persecutions unleashed by Nero (64 AD), the date of writing of the Epistle moves to mid-64 AD at the latest.

It seems quite probable to us 63-65 AD.

IV. PURPOSE OF WRITING AND TOPIC

Overall, the book of Hebrews deals with the incredible struggles that accompany the transition from one religious system to another. This includes the pain of breaking old ties, the stress and tension of alienation, and the enormous pressure put on the apostate to force him to return.

But the problem at the center of this Message is not simply the transition from the old system to a new one that is equivalent to it. No, the question here was about the transition from Judaism to Christianity and, as the author shows, about leaving the shadow for the sake of substance, the ritual for the sake of the true essence, the preliminary for the final, the temporary for the permanent - in short, the good for the best.

But it was also a problem of moving away from the popular to the unpopular, from the majority to the minority, from the oppressors to the oppressed. And this gave rise to many serious difficulties.

The message was addressed to people of Jewish origin. These Jews heard the Gospel preached by the apostles and evangelists at the dawn of the Church, and saw the great miracles of the Holy Spirit that supported this preaching. They responded to the Good News in different ways.

Some believed in the Lord Jesus Christ and sincerely converted to Christianity.

Some claimed to have become Christians, were baptized, and took their place in local communities. Yet they were never regenerated by the Holy Spirit of God.

Others resolutely rejected the message of salvation.

The Message deals with the first two groups - Jews who truly found salvation, but who were far from Christianity.

When a Jew abandoned the faith of his fathers, he was looked upon as a renegade and apostate (“meshumed”), and faced one or more punishments: - disinheritance; - exclusion from the religious brotherhood of Israel; - job loss; - deprivation of property; - "psycho-terror" and physical torture; - becoming an object of universal ridicule; - imprisonment; - martyrdom.

There remained, of course, a road to retreat. If he renounces Christ and returns to Judaism, he will be freed from further persecution. Between the lines of this Message we read about some of the arguments that were used to convince the “renegade” to return to Judaism: - the rich traditions of the prophets; - Outstanding ministry of angels in history ancient people God's; - intimacy with the famous lawgiver Moses; - national ties connecting a Jew with the brilliant military leader Joshua; - the glory of the Aaronic priesthood; - The Holy of Holies, the place chosen by God to dwell among His people; - the covenant of law given by God through Moses; - the God-ordained structure of the sanctuary and the magnificent veil; - services in the sanctuary and especially the ritual on the great Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur - the most important day in the Jewish calendar).

Before our eyes vividly rises the image of a Jew who lived at the dawn of our era, who describes all the glory of his ancient, rich in rituals religion, and then with a contemptuous grin asks: “What do you, Christians, have? We have all this. What do you have?” you? Nothing but an unassuming room and a table with bread and wine on it! Do you really want to say that you left everything for the sake of it? this?"

The book of Hebrews is actually an answer to the question: "What do you have?" And this answer is formulated in one word: "Christ". In Him we have:

- The One who is greater than the prophets;

- The One who is greater than the angels;

- One who is greater than Moses;

- One who is greater than Joshua;

- Him whose priesthood is higher than the priesthood of Aaron;

- One who serves in a much better sanctuary;

- The One who introduced a much better covenant;

- Him Whose type was the construction of the tabernacle and the veil;

- The One whose sacrifice of Himself, completed once and for all, stands above the repeated sacrifices of bulls and goats.

Just as the stars fade in the rays of a sun brighter than themselves, so the types and shadows of Judaism fade in the rays of a more glorious person and work of the Lord Jesus than themselves.

But there was also the problem of persecution.

Those who declared their affiliation with the Lord Jesus faced fierce fanatical opposition. In view of this, true believers were in danger of losing heart and falling into despair. This means that they needed to be encouraged, encouraged not to lose faith in the promises of God. They must endure everything patiently in view of the coming reward.

Those who merely called themselves Christians were in danger of apostasy. Having once declared that they had accepted Christ, they could now categorically renounce Him and return to ritual religion. This is tantamount to trampling the Son of God underfoot, desecrating His Blood and insulting the Holy Spirit. There was no repentance or forgiveness for such a deliberate sin. The book of Hebrews warns against this sin again and again. 2:1 says that he who commits this sin disappears from the message of Christ; in 3:7-19 - that he rebels against God, or hardens his heart.

In 6.6 it is named fallen away or an apostate. In 10.25 this sin is called sin leaving the meeting, in 10.26 - sin arbitrary or intentional. In 12:16 this sin is spoken of as selling his birthright for one food. Finally, at 12.25 he is named refusal to listen The One who speaks from heaven. But all these warnings are directed against different aspects of the same sin - sin apostasy.

The book of Hebrews is as relevant today as it was in the early days of the Church.

We need constant reminders of the eternal privileges and blessings that are ours in Christ. We need exhortation to endure everything patiently, regardless of any difficulties or opposition. All who call themselves Christians need a warning: do not return to ritual religion after you have tasted and seen how good the Lord is.

Plan

I. THE SUPERIORITY OF THE PERSON OF JESUS ​​(1.1 - 4.13)

A. The superiority of Jesus over the prophets (1:1-3)

B. The superiority of Jesus over the angels (1.4 - 2.18)

C. The superiority of Jesus over Moses and Joshua (3.1 - 4.13)

II. THE EXCELLENCE OF THE PRIESTHOOD OF JESUS ​​(4.14 - 10.18)

A. The superiority of the high priesthood of Jesus over the high priesthood of Aaron (4:14 - 7:28)

B. The Superiority of Jesus' Ministry over Aaron's (Ch. 8)

C. The superiority of Christ's sacrifice over the sacrifices of the Old Testament (9.1 - 10.18)

III. WARNING AND ADSURES (10.19 - 13.17)

A. Warning not to despise Christ (10:19-39)

B. An exhortation to faith using examples from the Old Testament (Chapter 11)

C. An Exhortation to Trust in Christ (Chapter 12)

D. Exhortation on various Christian virtues (13:1-17)

IV. FINAL BLESSING (13,18-25)

B. An exhortation to faith using examples from the Old Testament (Chapter 11)

11,1 The main theme of this chapter is discernment and endurance. faith. She points us to people from the OT who had excellent spiritual vision, who went through incredible shame and suffering, but did not renounce their faith.

Of course, verse 1 does not give a clear definition of faith, but a description of what faith does for us. Thanks to her expected becomes as real as if we already possessed it; it gives rise to an unshakable confidence in the reality and certainty of the invisible spiritual blessings of Christianity. In other words, it brings the future into the present and makes the invisible visible.

Faith- confidence that you can rely on God. This is the conviction that everything God has said - the truth and everything He has promised - will come true.

Faith needs a foundation - some revelation of God, some of His promises. It is by no means a step into the unknown. It demands the most compelling evidence in the universe and finds it in the Word of God. It is not limited only to the possible, but also invades the world of the impossible. Someone said: “Faith begins where the possible ends.” If this is possible, then there is no place for the glory of God in it.

Faith, mighty faith looking to God
He will smile when he hears: “This is impossible!”
The Word of God is truthful, faithful, absolutely reliable,
Everything He promised will be fulfilled on time!

In the life of faith there are also difficulties and problems. God puts our faith through severe trials to see if it is sincere (1 Pet. 1:7). But as George Mueller said: “Difficulty is the yeast on which the dough of faith rises.”

11,2 The heroes of the OT walked by faith and not by sight and therefore received God's approval. All the following verses in this chapter illustrate how God witnessed to them.

11,3 Faith provides us with the only factual account of creation. God was the only one present. He tells us how it happened.

We believe His Word and therefore we know.

McCue states: "The concept that God existed before matter and created it by His word is beyond the scope of inference or demonstrative evidence. It is simply accepted by faith."

By faith we know. The world says: “I will see, then I will believe.” God says: "Believe it, then you will see it." Jesus said to Martha: “Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see?..” (John 11:40). The Apostle John wrote: “I have written these things to you who believe... so that you might know...” (1 John 5:13). In spiritual matters, faith precedes understanding.

The eyelids are built by the word of God. God spoke - and matter arose. This is fully consistent with the scientific discoveries of people, which indicate that matter is essentially energy.

When God spoke, His word generated a flow of energy in the form of sound waves.

They were transformed into matter and the world came into being.

From the invisible came the visible.

Energy is invisible; atoms, molecules and gases are invisible to the naked eye; in their own combination they become visible.

The fact of creation, as it is described here in Hebrews (11:3), is beyond all criticism. He has never undergone any corrections, and he will not experience them in the future.

11,4 Adam and Eve are not included in the honorable list of heroes of the faith. When Eve had to decide who was telling the truth - God or Satan, she chose Satan. This, however, does not mean that they were not later saved by faith, the symbol of which was clothing made from animal skins.

Apparently Abel it was revealed that sinful man can approach God only on the basis of shed blood. He may have learned this from his parents, whose fellowship with God was restored only after He clothed them in animal skins (Gen. 3:21). In any case, he showed his faith by coming to God with blood victims. Cain's sacrifice was vegetables and fruits, which means it was without blood. Abel illustrates the truth of salvation by grace through faith. Cain symbolizes man's fruitless attempts to save himself by his own deeds.

George Cutting points out "that God did not count Abel righteous because of his personal excellence, but because of the excellence of the sacrifice he made and his faith in it." It is the same with us: we are justified not because of our character or good works, but solely because of the excellence of Christ's sacrifice and our acceptance of Him.

Cain killed Abel because the law hates grace. The self-righteous man hates the truth that he cannot save himself and that he must rely on the love and mercy of God.

But Abel’s testimony remained forever: by faith He speaks still. In a sense, faith gives a person's vocal cords the ability to continue to function long after his body has been placed in the grave.

11,5 At some point in my life Enoch, must have received a promise from God that he would go to heaven without seeing death. Before that time, sooner or later, everyone died. Nowhere is it said that anyone was resettled, without seeing death. But God promised, and Enoch believed. This was the smartest thing Enoch could have done.

What could be nobler than the trust a creature has in its Creator? That's exactly what happened! For three hundred years Enoch walked before the invisible God (Gen. 5:21-24) and then took a step into eternity. Before his relocation, he received evidence that he pleased God. A life of faith always pleases God. He loves when people trust Him.

11,6 Without faith it is impossible to please God. No amount of good deeds can make up for the lack faith.

After all is said and done, a person who refuses to believe God is calling Him a liar. “He who does not believe God represents Him as a liar” (1 John 5:10). How can people please God if they call Him a liar? Faith is the only thing that allows God to take His rightful place and puts man in his place. “It brings great glory to God,” writes W. H. Mackintosh, “because it proves that we trust the keenness of His eyes more than our own.”

Faith not only believes that God exists, but is also confident that He will reward those who seek Him. There is nothing in God that is impossible for man to believe. It all comes down to the question of whether he wants it.

11,7 Faith of Noah was based on God's warning that He was going to destroy the whole world with a flood (Gen.

6.17). In its entire history, humanity has never seen a flood; moreover, there is reason to believe that before that time there was no rain on earth (Gen. 2:5-6). Noah believed God and built ark, although he probably lived far from navigable bodies of water. He was undoubtedly made fun of by both young and old. But Noah's faith was rewarded: his family was saved, world was convicted his life and testimony, and he became an heir of righteousness, acquired on the basis faith.

Perhaps many of the early Jewish Christians to whom this Epistle was written often asked themselves the question: if the truth is on their side, why are there so few of them? And Noah comes out of the pages of the OT to remind them that in his day only eight people were right, while the rest of the world perished! 11,8 Living in Ur of the Chaldeans, Abraham may have been an idolater when one day God appeared to him and ordered him to move to a new place of residence. In obedience faith he left home and country, not knowing where it is going. No doubt his friends ridiculed him for such stupidity, but Abraham thought:

"I'm walking along the road
Leading me into the unknown
But it’s better to walk with God in the dark,
Than yourself in bright light,
It is better to walk with Him by faith,
Than one with his own vision."

(Ellen Annis Casterline)

To an outside observer, the path of faith may seem crazy and reckless, but one who knows God will happily follow Him blindly, without knowing the whole route in advance.

11,9 God promised Abraham Canaan land. She really belonged to him. However, the only thing he owned on it was the cave where the dead were buried. Instead of acquiring real estate, he was content with life in tents, which symbolized wandering. For a time he treated Canaan as if it were someone else's country.

On these travels he was accompanied by his son and grandson. His righteous example left its mark on their attitude towards the earth, although they were joint heirs of the same promise and they knew that the land would belong to them.

11,10 Why was Abraham so indifferent to real estate? Because he looked for a city that has foundations, whose architect and builder is God. He passionately desired not the momentary, material, but the eternal. In the original and before "city" and before "foundation" there is a definite article (which corresponds to the demonstrative pronoun in Russian) - this city, this foundation. Faith takes into account only one city, worthy of this name, the only one that stands on an unshakable basis.

God is the architect of this heavenly city, and He is its builder. This is an exemplary city, without slums, poisonous air, polluted water, without all the problems that plague all our megacities.

11,11 By faith Sarah received strength to conceive at the age of ninety.

The narrative clearly indicates that she was already past the age when she could give birth to a child. But she knew that God had promised to give her a baby and could not take His word back. She had unshakable faith that He would do everything He promised.

11,12 When Isaac was born, Abraham was approximately 99 years old. From a human point of view, he could no longer become a father, but since God promised him numerous offspring, this had to happen.

Through Isaac, Abraham became the father of an innumerable earthly family - the Jewish people. Through Christ he became the father of an innumerable spiritual family, that is, of all believers of all subsequent centuries.

Sand on the seashore, probably serves as a symbol of him earthly offspring, while stars in the sky symbolize heavenly people.

11,13 Patriarchs all died in faith.

During their lifetime they did not see the fulfillment of Divine promises. Abraham, for example, never saw his many descendants. The Jewish people never owned all the land they were promised. The OT saints did not see the fulfillment of the promise of the Messiah. But their faith, like a telescope, allowed them to see promises very near, so that in Scripture they are depicted joyfully welcoming their approach.

They realized that this world was not their eternal refuge. They were content with life wanderers and aliens, refusing to follow calls to settle down here more comfortably. They wished to pass through this world without borrowing any of its characteristic features. They had the hearts of pilgrims.

11,14 With their lives they are clear showed that they were looking for the fatherland. Faith sowed in their hearts a longing for their homeland, which all the joys of Canaan were unable to satisfy. There was a longing within them for another, better land that they could call home.

11,15 Having said that they were looking for the fatherland, the author explains that here he does not mean Not the land where they were born. If Abraham had wanted to return to Mesopotamia, he could have done so, but that land was no longer his homeland.

11,16 In fact, they were looking for heavenly fatherland. This is quite remarkable when we remember that most of the promises to the people of Israel related to material blessings on earth. But they also had heavenly hope, and it was this hope that gave them the strength to treat this world as a foreign country.

This spirit of wandering is especially pleasing to God. Darby writes: “He is not ashamed to be called the God of those whose portion and heart is in heaven.” He prepared a city for them, and in it they will find peace, contentment and perfect peace.

11,17 We are approaching our greatest test faith Abraham. God ordered him to sacrifice his only son - Isaac. Without hesitation, Abraham obediently set out on his journey to sacrifice to God the most precious treasure of his heart. Did he really not pay attention to the seemingly insoluble dilemma he found himself in? God promised to give him countless offspring. Isaac was his only son. Abraham was already 117 years old, and Sarah was 108 years old!

11,18 The promise of a great multitude of descendants was to be fulfilled in Isaac. The dilemma was this: if Abraham had killed Isaac, how could this promise be fulfilled? Isaac was 17 years old at the time and unmarried.

11,19 Abraham knew what God promised, nothing else mattered. He came to the conclusion that if God demanded that he kill his own son, then God will raise him from the dead, to fulfill His promise.

Until this moment, not a single case of resurrection from the dead had been recorded. Nothing like this has ever happened in the history of mankind. Abraham literally invented the idea of ​​resurrection. Faith in God's promise led him to the conclusion that God would have to raise Isaac.

In a figurative sense, Abraham really received Isaac from the dead. With all his being he submitted to the fact that Isaac must die. God credited him with this act. But, as Grant accurately noted, the Lord “did not allow Abraham’s heart to know the cruel pain that His own heart knows.” He prepared a ram to take Isaac's place, and the only son was returned to his father.

Before we leave this outstanding example of faith, two points must be noted. First, God never intended for Abraham to kill his son. God never required human sacrifice from His people. He tested Abraham's faith and saw that it was sincere, and then He canceled His order.

Second: Abraham's faith in the promise of many descendants was tested for a hundred years. The Patriarch was seventy-five when he was first promised a son. He waited twenty-five years before Isaac was born. Isaac was seventeen when Abraham led him to Mount Moriah to sacrifice him to God.

Isaac was forty when he married, and another twenty years passed before his twins were born. Abraham died at the age of 175. At that time, his entire offspring consisted of a seventy-five-year-old son and two fifteen-year-old grandchildren. And yet he “did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief, but remained strong in faith, giving glory to God and being fully confident that He was able to perform what He had promised” (Rom. 4:20-21).

11,20 It is difficult for us, with our Western way of thinking, to understand what was so unusual about the faith Isaac, Jacob and Joseph, as described in the next three verses. Isaac, for example, earned a place in the hall of fame of heroes of the faith because he invoked future blessings on Jacob and Esau. What's so special about this? Even before the children were born, the Lord announced to Rebekah that the boys would become the ancestors of two nations and that the older one (Esau) would serve the younger one (Jacob). Esau was Isaac's favorite and, as the eldest son, should have received from his father the best share of the inheritance. But Rebekah and Jacob deceived Isaac, who was almost blind, and he gave the best blessing Jacob. When their plot was discovered, Isaac flew into a terrible rage. However, he did not forget the word of God that the elder will serve the younger and, despite the fact that he loved Esau more, he realized that everything must remain as it was.

11,21 In life Jacob there were many inglorious pages, nevertheless, he is honored as a hero of the faith. His character improved over the years, and he died in the prime of his fame. Blessing Ephraim and Manasseh sons of Joseph he crossed his arms so that the blessings of the eldest son would fall on Ephraim, the younger. Despite Joseph's protests, Jacob insisted that the blessing stand because it was the Lord's order. His physical vision weakened, but his spiritual vision was sharper than ever. The last thing we see at the end of Jacob's life is his figure bowed in worship, leaning on his staff. C. G. Mackintosh sums it up this way: “The end of Jacob’s life is a wonderful contrast with the entire previous character of his so eventful life. It reminds us of a clear evening that replaced a stormy day; the sun, hidden all day behind clouds and fog, shines in all its splendor and beauty; the last rays the West gilds him, foreshadowing a wonderful tomorrow. So it was with the aged patriarch All the actions that stained his life, all his tricks, tricks in making deals, his cunning, his selfish fears, the fruit of his unbelief - all these dark sides of his natural character and land. gone into the past, and he appears before our eyes in all the calm majesty of faith, dispensing blessings, determining the advantages of his sons, revealing at the same time the holy sensitivity that can only be acquired in close communion with God.(C. H. Mackintosh, Genesis to Deuteronomy: Notes on the Pentateuch, p. 133.)

11,22 Faith Joseph with him death was also strong. He believed God's promise to lead the people of Israel out of Egypt. Thanks to faith, even then the Exodus stood before his mind's eye. He was so confident in it that he told his sons to take it bones with them and bury them in Canaan. “Consequently,” writes William Lincoln, “though he was surrounded with all the pomp and circumstance of Egypt, his heart was not there, but with his people in their future glory and blessings.” (William Lincoln, Lectures on the Epistle to the Hebrews, p. 106.)

11,23 In fact, what we are presented with here is the faith of Moses' parents, not his own. Looking at the baby, they saw that the child is beautiful, but it wasn't easy physical beauty. They saw that this child was destined for a special fate, that God had chosen him for special work. Their faith that God would definitely achieve His purposes gave them the courage to disobey royal command And three months hide the child.

11,24 By faith already myself Moses I was able to give up a lot. Surrounded by the luxury of an Egyptian palace, possessing everything that people strive for so fiercely, he learned “that it is not the possession of things, but the renunciation of them that brings true peace” (J. Gregory Mantle).

First, he abandoned the glory of Egypt. He was adopted son of Pharaoh's daughter, and he was thus guaranteed a place among the country's elite, and perhaps even the throne of Pharaoh. But even more noble blood flowed in his veins - the blood of the earthly chosen people of God.

Possessing this rank, he could not humiliate yourself to the penis position royal family Egypt. Having reached adulthood, he made his choice.

He was not going to hide his nationality for the sake of a few short years of earthly glory.

Result? His memory is immortalized not in two lines of hieroglyphs on some gloomy tomb, but in God's eternal Book. Instead of ending up in a museum like one of the Egyptian mummies, he found fame as a man of God.

11,25 Secondly, he refused pleasures Egypt. The opportunity to be with God's suffering people meant more than self-indulgence and whims. The honor of sharing the fate of his tormented people brought him greater satisfaction than carousing at the court of Pharaoh.

11,26 Third, Moses turned away from Egyptian treasures. Thanks to faith, he was able to see that the legendary treasuries of Egypt were losing all value in the rays of eternity.

Therefore, he chose the same for himself vilification which the Messiah will later take upon himself. Loyalty to God and love for His people meant more to Moses than all the treasures of Pharaoh.

He knew that with his death they would be of no use.

11,27 Fourthly, he also renounced the Egyptian ruler. Drawing courage from faith Moses left the land of slavery, without fear of the king's wrath. With this he definitely broke with the customs of the world. He feared Pharaoh so little because he feared God just as much. His gaze was riveted on the One who is “the blessed and only strong King of kings and Lord of lords, the only one who has immortality, who dwells in the unapproachable light, whom no one has seen and cannot see.

Honor and eternal power to him! Amen" (1 Tim. 6:15-16).

11,28 And finally he rejected religion Egypt. Establishing Passover and shedding blood, Moses demonstratively distanced himself forever from Egyptian idolatry. He challenged his entire religious system. His salvation came from the blood of the lamb, not from the waters of the Nile. As a result fighter spared firstborns the Israelites, but killed the Egyptians.

11,29 At first it seemed that Red sea brought death to Jewish refugees. Hot on the heels of the enemy, they seemed to have fallen into a trap. But, obedient to God’s word, they moved forward, and the waters parted: “...and the Lord drove the sea with a strong east wind all night and made the sea dry land, and the waters parted” (Ex. 14:21). When Egyptians tried to follow them, the wheels of their chariots got stuck in the sand, the waters returned to their usual place, and the Pharaoh's army drowned. Thus, the Red Sea became a paved road of deliverance for the Israelites and a death sentence for the Egyptians.

11,30 Surrounded by high walls, the city Jericho was the first military installation of the Israelites during the conquest of Canaan. The human mind would declare that only a huge army could take such an impregnable fortress. But faith has completely different methods. In order to achieve His purposes, God uses strategies that may seem foolish to humans. The Lord ordered His people to circumvent the city for seven days. On the seventh day they were required to walk around it seven times. The priests were to blow their trumpets loudly, the people were to shout loudly, and walls will fall.

Military experts would dismiss such a method as ridiculous. But it had an effect! Weapons in spiritual battle are also not of this world, but they contain Divine power for the destruction of strongholds (2 Cor. 10:4).

11,31 We don't know when harlot Rahab began to worship the Lord, but it is quite clear that she did so.

She left the false religion of Canaan and embraced Judaism. Her faith was severely tested when Jewish spies crossed the threshold of her home. To whom will she be loyal: to her country and compatriots or to the Lord? Rahab decided to side with the Lord, even if it meant betraying her country. Thanks to the warm welcome she gave spies she and her family were spared, while her unruly neighbors died.

11,32 Here the author asks a rhetorical question: "And what else can I say?" He has already provided an impressive list of people who demonstrated faith and patience during the OT. How many more names must be listed to convey this truth to the reader? He has no shortage of examples, but time is running out. A more detailed description would take too much time, so the author limits himself to listing some names, as well as triumphs and tests of faith.

Here Gideon, whose army was reduced from 32,000 to 300 men. First the timid ones were sent home, then those who valued personal comfort too highly. With a core of true followers, Gideon drove out the Midianites.

Then there was Varak. Called to lead Israel in battle against the Canaanite army, he agreed to this only on the condition that Deborah would go with them. Despite this, God saw his great hope and added his name to the list of men of faith.

Samson also applies to those Israelis whose weaknesses were obvious. However, God saw the faith that gave Samson the strength to kill a young lion with his bare hands, destroy thirty Philistines at Ascalon, kill a thousand Philistines with the jawbone of a donkey, carry away the gates of Gaza, and finally destroy the temple of Dagon, killing more Philistines at the time of his death than in all my life.

Even though he was born out of wedlock, Jephthah, nevertheless, he became a judge who saved the people from the Ammonites.

He is a shining example of how faith empowers a person to rise above his background and environment and influence the course of history for the glory of God.

Faith shines through the duel David with Goliath, his noble behavior towards Saul, the capture of Zion and countless other episodes. In the Psalms, David's faith took the form of repentance, praise, and prophecy.

Samuel- the last judge of Israel and its first prophet. At a time when the ominous shadow of spiritual bankruptcy lay over the priesthood, he became God's messenger to the people. This is one of the greatest figures in the history of Israel.

Add others to the list below prophets noble heralds of God, people with an unusually sensitive conscience, who would rather die than lie, who would rather go to heaven with a clear conscience than remain on earth with a stain.

11,33 From listing the names of people of faith, the author now moves on to describing their exploits. They conquered kingdoms. Here Joshua, the judges (who were in reality military leaders), David and others come to mind.

They they did the truth. Solomon, Asa, Jehoshaphat, Joash, Hezekiah and Josiah went down in history as kings during whose times righteousness reigned, although they themselves were not perfect.

They received the promises. This may mean that God made covenants with them, as was the case with Abraham, Moses, David and Solomon; or they received the fulfillment of God's promises, which clearly demonstrated the truth of His words.

They stopped the lions' mouths. The clearest example of this is Daniel (Dan. 6:22), but we should not forget Samson (Judges 14:5-6) and David (1 Sam. 17:34-35).

11,34 They extinguished the power of the fire. The hot fire in the furnace was only able to burn the bonds of the three young Jews and set them free (Dan. 3:25). Thus, it turned out to be a blessing in disguise.

They avoided the edge of the sword. David escaped from the evil attacks of Saul (1 Kings 19:9-10), Elijah escaped from the deadly hatred of Jezebel (1 Kings 19:1-3), Elisha escaped from the Syrian king (2 Kings 6:15-19).

Strengthened from weakness. There are many symbols of weakness in the annals of faith. Ehud, for example, was left-handed and nevertheless killed the Moabite king (Judges 3:12-22). Jael, a representative of the “weaker sex,” killed Sisera with a tent stake (Judges 4:21). Attacking the Midianite camp, Gideon was armed with clay jugs and won (Judges 7:20). Samson crushed a thousand Philistines with the jawbone of a donkey (Judges 15:15). All of them are a clear confirmation of the truth that God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the strong (1 Cor. 1:27).

They were strong in the war. Faith gave people supernatural strength, allowing them to defeat an enemy many times superior to them.

They drove away the alien regiments. Often poorly armed and vastly outnumbered, Israel's armies achieved easy victories, leaving the enemy in disarray and everyone else in amazement.

11,35 Women received their dead resurrected. Examples of this are the widow from Zarephath (1 Kings 17:22) and the woman from Sonam (2 Kings 4:34).

But faith has another face. In addition to those who accomplished incredible feats, there were also those who experienced incredible suffering. The latter are just as valuable in the eyes of God as the former.

Because of their faith in the Lord, some had to undergo severe torture. Had they renounced Him, they would have been released immediately; but they preferred to die and rise again in heavenly glory than to continue life with the stigma of having betrayed God. During the time of the Maccabees, Antiochus Epiphanes executed a mother and her seven sons one after another in front of each other. They rejected his offer to let them go in order to get a better resurrection, that is, better than simply continuing life on earth. Morrison writes: “So, this is also the fruit of faith, when it does not bring deliverance to a person, but at times when deliverance is offered to him, it gives great courage to reject this deliverance. There are times when faith is evidenced by what a person rejects. There is deliverance that faith concludes into a hug.

There is a deliverance that faith repels. They are tortured and tormented, but they do not accept the deliverance offered to them, and this serves as a sign and seal of their loyalty. There are moments when the loudest evidence of faith is a categorical refusal to move into a large room."(G. H. Morrison, "Morrison on Luke" , The Glasgow Pulpit Series, I:42.)

11,36 Others experienced abuse and beatings, were in bonds and in dungeon For his devotion to God, Jeremiah experienced all these forms of punishment (Jer. 20:1-6; 37:15). Joseph was also thrown into prison for choosing suffering over sin (Gen. 39:20).

11,37 They were stoned.

Jesus reminded the scribes and Pharisees that their ancestors killed Zechariah between the temple and the altar (Matt.

They were sawable. Tradition claims that this is how King Manasseh executed Isaiah.

They were subjected to torture. Perhaps this describes terrible tests that were inflicted on believers in order to force them to compromise, renounce, sin, or otherwise abandon their Lord.

They died by the sword. This is the price Uriah paid for bringing God’s message to King Jehoiakim (Jer.

26.23); but these words refer more to a mass murder similar to that which took place in the time of the Maccabees.

They wandered around in sheepskins and goatskins, enduring shortcomings, sorrows, and bitterness. Moorehead comments: “Had they only renounced God and believed the lies of the world, they could have basked in silks and velvets, enjoyed luxury in princely palaces. Instead, they wandered around in clothes made from the skins of sheep and goats; in the eyes of the world, they themselves were no better than these animals , and still they rejoiced that they were considered fit only for slaughter."(William G. Moorehead, Outline Studies in the New Testament. Philippians to Hebrews, p. 248.)

They bravely endured poverty, deprivation and persecution.

11,38 The world treated them as if they had no right to live on earth. But the Spirit of God inserts here the remark that everything was just the opposite - this the world was unworthy of them.

They wandered through deserts and mountains, through caves and gorges of the earth. Deprived of homes, torn from their families, hunted like wild beasts, thrown out of society, they endured heat and cold, sorrows and disasters, but remained faithful to their Lord.

11,39 Although God testifies to the faith of these heroes of the OT, nevertheless they died without receiving promised. They did not live to see the coming of the long-awaited Messiah or enjoy the blessings of His ministry.

11,40 God prepared for us something better. He arranged everything so that They did not achieve perfection without us.

Their conscience could never be clear as to sin, and they will not begin to enjoy the full perfection of a glorified body in heaven until we are all caught up to meet the Lord in the air (1 Thess. 4:13-18). The souls of the OT saints are already perfect in the presence of the Lord (Heb. 12:23), but their bodies will not rise from the dead until the Lord returns for His people. Only then will they be able to enjoy the perfection of the glory of the resurrection.

In other words, OT believers were not nearly as privileged as we are. But think of their amazing triumphs and great trials! Think about their exploits and long-suffering! They lived on the other side of the cross; we live in the rays of its full glory.

What does our life look like compared to theirs? It is simply impossible not to hear the call of chapter 11 of the Epistle to the Hebrews.

11:1 Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the assurance of things not seen.
(a reasonable expectation of something that is not yet visible, but will certainly come true in the future)

Faith has no meaning in the visible spectrum: believing in the obvious (in the existence of what you see, what you touch and what you use) is just as meaningless as doubting its existence.

But to be convinced of the presence of what you do not see and what is not yet there is possible only with the efforts of the mind, which generates faith in the invisible and preserves it in the heart of the believer.
Solomon once described the correct attitude towards the invisible: “what is not there is cannot be considered" However, what no - you can believe it.

The only question is whether faith has a basis and, if so, what kind: faith without foundation is fanaticism or blind faith, which not only does not bring any benefit, but often brings tangible harm to fanatics and those around them.

Faith on a false basis (unfounded) is vain or vain (superstition), which does not bring any benefit to either the believer or those around him, only disappointment.
For example, to believe that people of only one nationality have the right to live on earth is fanaticism and is harmful.
Believing that, for example, sowing corn and being cured of epilepsy is a superstition; it is useless to believe in it.

Paul speaks to the Jews about the faith of the fans of the true God, based on the correct knowledge about Him received from himself: His fans during their lifetime have a strong faith that every single promise of God for them will be fulfilled in the future, and they hold on to this throughout their lives , resisting any attempts from the outside to break faith in it.

11:2 It bears witness to the ancients.
The positive effect of well-founded and correct faith, one might say, has been tested on all worshipers of God of antiquity: correct faith, based on correct inner convictions and correct knowledge, only brings benefit to both believers in the true God and those around them. Even if believers do not receive any benefits during their lifetime and are persecuted, which is natural for all pious people (2 Tim. 3:12), the benefit of correct faith is that a person, with its help, forms all the internal qualities necessary for the personality of the future of God's world.

11:3 By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that what is visible was made out of things that are visible.
Thanks to the belief that their God is the creator of everything visible and invisible, worshipers of God have a correct understanding of the reasons for the emergence of everything visible: God wanted to do something that was not yet visible, but was merely part of His intentions and was born in His mind - he said his word about “it becoming so” as He intended - and “it became so” (Gen. 1: 3,7,9, etc.).

For example, invisible energy turned into visible matter (Einstein only discovered the connection between the mass of visible material matter and invisible energy and the speed of light. But God knew about it from the beginning)

Worshipers of the true God have known Him since ancient times as “the one who gives to become everything” that should become according to his word (the name of God “Jehovah”, designated in the Bible by the Tetragrammaton YHVH (Ex. 6: 3; 15: 3; 34: 5, etc. .) – the meaning of the name of God, who gives to become everything that fills His universe)

11:4 By faith Abel offered God a better sacrifice than Cain;
Abel, for example, thanks to his sincere and complete trust in God, was able to please God more with his sacrifice than Cain. But the point is not in the types of sacrifices themselves, as the Apostle John explained elsewhere, but in Abel’s correct inner motives of faith: his heart was correctly disposed towards God, therefore his deeds were righteous. Cain’s heart had the wrong inner motives, he was an evil and envious person, which is why Cain’s sacrifice was not pleasing to God (1 John 3:12, Jude 1:11)

by it he received evidence that he was righteous, as God testified about his gifts; Abel's correct faith led to the fact that God saw a righteous man in Abel and joyfully accepted His gifts. God is far from the wicked and does not accept gifts, even the most exquisite and most expensive from the point of view of the giver (Prov. 15:29, Isa. 1:13)

He still speaks with it even after death. Abel’s faith even after his death testifies to everyone who learns about Abel from the Bible - about what made Abel recognized as righteous by God: thanks to the right motives of Abel’s believing heart.

11:5 By faith Enoch was translated so that he did not see death; and he was no more, because God had translated him. For before his migration he received a testimony that he pleased God.
Enoch, just like Abel, somehow received a testimony from God that he was pleasing to God, that God sees in this believer his righteousness (God found a way to make Enoch understand his favor towards him - even before how Enoch disappeared from the land of the wicked antediluvian laity)

But what does Enoch’s “no more” mean? Where did Enoch go if God “translated him”? Did he go to heaven, as some Bible readers think?

According to Paul's further words, Enoch died, like all other believers, standing on the same level with Abel and Enoch, without receiving what was promised during his lifetime - Heb.11:5-13.

5 By faith Abel... By faith Enoch….., By faith Noah….., By faith Abraham…. By faith Sarah herself...(did something)
13 All these died in faith, not receiving the promises, but only saw them from afar, and rejoiced, and said about themselves that they were strangers and strangers on earth

What was promised to Enoch, for example, and what did he NOT receive during his lifetime?
Enoch was promised a judgment against all the wicked (Jude 14:15), which he sacredly believed in, which the antediluvian world warned about, but which he did not receive during his lifetime.

Enoch did not see death, as Paul says. He died so suddenly that he did not see the process of aging and death. God freed Enoch from the life of a believing “black sheep”, doomed to loneliness among the wicked, at an early age for that time: if we start from an average age of 80 years, then Enoch died at the age of about 28 years. (Gen.5:23)

However, Enoch did not go to heaven and did not yet receive immortality. Why can you think so?
Since before coming to earth in human form - Jesus was in the heavenly sphere with the Father (John 6:38,62) ​​- therefore, he had precise knowledge that none of the earthly people faithful to Jehovah appeared in heaven, at least until he came to earth.

Jesus Christ reported that except for him, none of the dead people ascended to heaven (John 3:13). And within the boundaries of the earth of this age, no one possesses immortality:
the flesh of the descendant of Adam is not adapted for life in the heavenly sphere (1 Cor. 15:50, Psalm 113:24). The earth was created for him (Isaiah 45:18).

Some readers are still confused by the expression “ and he was no more because God took him ” or “removed him,” which is essentially the same thing, both in Paul and in Gen. 5:24.
Where did God take Enoch, to heaven? What does the expression “God took” mean?

Let's see what Isaiah writes, for example, about the death of the righteous:
The righteous man dies, and no one takes it to heart; and pious men admire 0622 [from the earth], and no one will think that the righteous admires 0622 from evil.
2 He departs to the world; Those who walk on the straight path will rest on their beds. (Isa.57:1,2)

So, the righteous man dies and rests (the expression “dead” is not accidental).
God takes the righteous from the evil of the earthly world order of this century - DEATH, and does not take him to heaven to Himself, as some believe. The righteous rest on their beds in their graves awaiting the resurrection, for there will be a resurrection of the just and the unjust (Acts 24:15)

Let's also look at the meaning of the word " admire"with Strong's index 0622:
Poa 0622
A. 2. accept, take to oneself;
3. shoot, take away ;
4. destroy, destroy;
5. clean up (to oneself).

B(ni): 1. to be collected, to gather;
2. to be taken, to disappear .

That is, righteous taken fromamong the wicked of the earth ;
God takes awayrighteous from evil - through death ,
and the righteous disappears from among those living on earth . That's all.

A similar picture is what happened to Enoch:

And Enoch walked with God; and he was no more, because God took 03947 his.(Gen.5:24) Meaning of the word "took":
03947 xql
1. take ;
2. take away , take possession, seize;

That is, Enoch, like every righteous person whom God decided take from evil among those living on earth, rested in death.

Determining where Enoch or anyone else went is actually not difficult if the point of view of the Bible is known in principle - that all the descendants of Adam are destined to die. (Heb.9:27)
Why? Because because of the inherited sin of Adam, there was not a single righteous person on earth who did not sin, except Jesus Christ (Rom. 3:23: 5:12) Therefore, ALL Adam’s descendants, without exception, including Enoch, must go through the wages of sin—death (Rom. 6:23).

Jesus did not die so that the descendants of Adam, who chose God's way of life, would become immortal - in this wicked age. But in order to dead in faith, the descendants of Adam - had the opportunity to come alive again, to be resurrected - in the coming century (to be resurrected according to the voice of the son of God - and to acquire as a gift eternal life, Mark.10:30) The Resurrection is the only hope for believers and humanity as a whole (John 5:28,29, Rom.6:23)
Exactly on Sunday dead believe all worshipers of the true God Jehovah, from ancient times to modern times (Job 19:25-27; John 11:24, Acts 24:15)

11:6 And without faith it is impossible to please God;
If a person wants to please God in his life, and not just stroll through life and please himself, then he needs to believe in the same thing that all His fans of all times believed in. Since they pleased God with their faith and the result of faith - righteousness, then everyone else who follows their example will be able to please God.

for he who comes to God must believe that He exists and is a rewarder of those who seek Him .
If anyone desires to draw closer to God and ultimately come to Him, having achieved all His promises, then they must first believe in the existence of the God to whom they intend to come.
And although someone who believes that there is no God also belongs to the category of “believers,” but with faith in this, the atheist will not wait for the fulfillment of God’s future promises: according to his faith, he will be, if he does not believe in God’s blessings, then he will receive them will not receive

11:7 By faith Noah, having received a revelation of things not yet seen,
Although Noah had never before seen the waters of a disastrous flood, nevertheless, he completely trusted God’s warning and with the eyes of faith saw the threat of a flood even when the antediluvian world was still thriving and living carefree, enjoying the excellent conditions of life on earth. (Some theologians believe that Noah did not see rain. This is incorrect; for more details, see Gen. 2:4-6)

reverently he prepared an ark for the salvation of his house;
Faith in the unseen led him to heed God's warnings with gratitude and reverence for the possibility of salvation, taking decisive action on his part for salvation. Correct faith always motivates you to act in the right direction for salvation, for “faith without works is dead” (James 2:20)

by it he condemned (the whole) world, and became heir of the righteousness of faith .
Noah's faith underscored the unbelief of the antediluvian world, for Noah's lifestyle was very different from that of the rest of his contemporaries: Noah proclaimed the judgments of God for all who did not respond to his offer to be saved in the ark, believing in God's coming punishment of the wicked as firmly as he believed it He.
Those who follow the example of Noah in believing in the unseen and, expecting the coming retribution of God on the wicked race, take action on their part to be saved - following the example of Noah, they will certainly be delivered from the destructive consequences of this wicked age, and in the age to come - and will gain salvation from death.

11:8 By faith Abraham obeyed the call to go to the country that he had to receive as an inheritance, and he went, not knowing where he was going.
Abraham is also an example of a worshiper of the true God who believes in the invisible: one can imagine what kind of trust Abraham must have had in God so that he, without hesitation and without unnecessary questions, would leave his home and civilization, dooming himself to the life of a “tent dweller.” a wanderer in a foreign land without comfortable conditions, in need and a constant struggle for survival - for the sole purpose of fulfilling the will of God and following strictly in the direction where He points - all his life.
Yes and life path Christian - is not laid in the direction where the Christian himself wants to go. But only where God wants him to go.

11:9 By faith he dwelt in the promised land as if it were a stranger, and lived in tents with Isaac and Jacob, joint heirs of the same promise;
During Abraham's wanderings, the land of his wanderings was alien and dangerous for the lives of him and all his household. However, he firmly believed that this appearance of a stranger was temporary, that one day he would certainly live in a land where milk and honey flowed, as in his native abode - along with those of his descendants, to whom God would favor the same way as and to himself.
And yet this will certainly be fulfilled for him in God’s new world.

11:10 for he looked for a city that has foundations, whose maker and builder is God.
Abraham believed that this wicked age was not his time. His time will come when the city of his God will rule the earth.
Later books of the Bible explain the meaning of the city of God expected by Abraham. The essence of this city, which represented the government of the heavenly Ruler, was first shown by the example of earthly Jerusalem - the city from which King Jehovah ruled his people with the help of his earthly assistant priests (Ex. 19: 5, 6; 1 Kings 11: 36; Matt. 5:35). Then the apostles spoke about the time when the heavenly Jerusalem would rule over the earth, first for 1000 years under the leadership of Christ, and then for eternity under the leadership of Jehovah (Rev. 20: 6, 21: 2; 22: 22-27; 1 Cor. 15: 28)
It was this city that Abraham expected, believing in the invisible, believing in its existence even when his descendants had no trace of an earthly Jerusalem, let alone a heavenly one.
To believe in the invisible, you still need to develop your imagination and make it rich.

11:11 By faith Sarah herself (being barren) received strength to receive seed, and out of season she gave birth, for she knew that He who promised was faithful. .
The power of faith in the invisible is shown by Paul and in the example of Sarah, who believed not only in the invisible, but also in the impossible for humans: Sarah gave birth to a son, Abraham, at almost 85 years old, at an age when physiologically a woman is not able to have children. She believed that nothing is impossible for God, and therefore she had the opportunity to be convinced of the correctness of her trust in the true God.

11:12 And therefore from one, and, moreover, a dead one, as many were born, as [many] the stars in the sky and as the countless sands on the seashore.
Thanks to strong faith in the invisible from the dead Abraham (incapable of having children) and Sarah (barren), Israel appeared, the numerous people of God of antiquity, whose history was very well known to the Jews from Italy with whom Paul talked.

11:13 All these died in faith, not receiving the promises, but only saw them from afar, and rejoiced, and said about themselves that they were strangers and strangers on earth;
Everyone whom the apostle just spoke about as bright representatives of the correct faith in the invisible true God and His promises did not lose faith in this until the end of their days, despite the fact that during their lifetime they did not wait for the fulfillment of what God promised. They perceived their life in this century as a temporary place of “dislocation” before entering the eternity of God, and they considered themselves strangers for this wicked age, traveling through a foreign land: I don’t care if I’m alive. And all the “fat” is THERE.
Modern Christians in this sense are no better than the former servants of God; they do not hope to receive many blessings now, in this century, and live happily ever after. They do not hope that godliness is for profit. And if they hope for this, then they are not Christians; it is better to stay away from such (2 Tim. 3:5)

11:14 for those who say so show that they are looking for a fatherland .
If the believers of antiquity had not called themselves “strangers” and considered the land of this century to be their native land and suitable for life, then one could say about them that they belong to this world and they like the life of the wicked world of this world.
But since God’s servants did not take this world seriously and wandered through the earth of this century as restless, it is clear that they wandered around this century in anticipation of their native refuge, where it would be possible for them to stop and settle forever, where they would like and where they would not feel like strangers.

11:15 And if they had in their thoughts the [fatherland] from which they came, they would have time to return;
If Abraham and Sarah, who left the land of their fatherland, dreaming of the land of their native fatherland, had in mind only the literal place of their birth or Ur of the Chaldeans, then they would have had the opportunity to return there and would have stopped grieving that they are complete strangers at the “festival of life” of the land of his wanderings.

11:16 but they strove for the best, that is, for the heavenly;
But since they did not intend to return to their historical homeland in this century, it means that when speaking about the search for their fatherland, they were not talking about Ur of the Chaldeans, but about God’s future world order, about the heavenly structure of the world, about an undoubtedly better system of things than the most prosperous homeland of this wicked age.

Therefore God is not ashamed of them, calling Himself their God: for He has prepared a city for them.
God is proud of his believers who did not want to accept this wicked world for themselves, but agreed to wait it out as strangers in it, rejecting all its “goods” in anticipation of God’s heavenly city of Jerusalem, descending from heaven to earth (Rev. 21:2) .
They believed that only the heavenly Ruler could give them exactly the benefits they needed: eternal and happy life on God’s earth and under God’s supervision.

11:17 By faith Abraham, being tempted, sacrificed Isaac
The strength and strength of Abraham's faith was manifested not only in anticipation of the future promises of God in the land flowing with milk and honey - for him and his many descendants.
But also in HOW he reacted to God’s request to sacrifice his only and beloved son Isaac for Him, without even understanding why exactly God needed Isaac’s death. He did not understand, but he did not ask any unnecessary questions: Abraham hastily and readily decided to give Isaac to God as a sacrifice, because he believed that fulfilling any will of God was right.

and having a promise, he offered his only begotten The word “only begotten” here is used of Isaac, and is also used of Jesus Christ, the only begotten of God (John 1:18)

In what sense is Isaac the only begotten of Abraham? Does this word mean that Isaac is the only son of Abraham? No: we know that Abraham had other sons according to the flesh. Ishmael, for example, and the children of Keturah - his wife after Sarah - were also sons of Abraham (Gen. 25: 1-5).
Just as God has in heaven there are many sons of God, spirits by origin (Job 38:7)

Then - in what sense is Isaac the only begotten of Abraham? He is the only one in the race of Abraham (from the race of Abraham), in relation to whom God left the promise of the origin of the seed (the future Christ) -Gen.21:12, Gal.3:16.
He is the only one unique of all the sons of Abraham, not only in the way he was born (from the barren Sarah and the dead Abraham). But also in God’s relation to him.
Likewise, Christ is unique not in that he is the only son from the race of God. And because, firstly, he appeared to God as the firstborn of all creation, becoming the beginning of God’s creation (Rev. 3:14)
And secondly, God’s relationship to Christ is special, in it are ALL THE PROMISES of Jehovah, in it is Amen to the fulfillment of all the promises of the heavenly Father to humanity - 2 Cor. 1:19,20

Let's return to the power of Abraham's faith: so, Abraham, believing in the promises of God, did not doubt for a second whether to give Isaac to God as a sacrifice or not, he decided: to give definitely.

11:18 of whom it was said, Thy seed shall be called in Isaac .
Why did his faith in the promise of multiple descendants through Isaac not waver? After all, he could have thought for a second, for example: “how will descendants come from Isaac if he is sacrificed?” I could. If not for his absolute trust in God:

11:19 For he thought that God was able to resurrect from the dead, which is why he received it as an omen.
The believer Abraham thought logically and according to the strength of his faith: if God promised to produce descendants from Isaac, then the death of Isaac will not be an obstacle to this, God is able to resurrect the dead - if necessary, to fulfill His promise.

11:20 Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau with faith in the future.
Faith in Isaac's unseen future is also noted by Paul:
Isaac, blessing Jacob, blesses him with strong faith that this blessing of God given to Abraham about the coming of the seed through his family will certainly be fulfilled on the one whom he blesses.
That is, what is important is the strength of his faith in the very blessing of God about the coming of Christ, and not the fact that he blessed his youngest son, not knowing who was before him. (Gen.48:28:3,4)

11:21 By faith Jacob, dying, blessed each son of Joseph and bowed down on the top of his staff.
During his life, Jacob did not lose faith in the fulfillment of future blessings of God for the descendants of Abraham through the line of Isaac - Jacob. And although Jacob blessed each of his 12 sons, Paul gives the example of Jacob's faith in Joseph because it was through the example of the disappearance and “resurrection” of Joseph that God showed Jacob how He arranges the affairs of all participants in His promises.

11:22 By faith Joseph, at his death, recalled the exodus of the children of Israel and testified about his bones.
Joseph’s faith in God’s promise to Abraham to return the sons of Jacob to the Promised Land was reminiscent of itself even after death: Joseph wished to return to the Promised Land even in the form of posthumous remains, so great was his faith that a servant of God should not leave the land of His promise. He believed in the return of God's people - to the land of Canaan when the fulfillment of this promise was not even visible on the horizon, when the people of God and Joseph himself were flourishing in the land of Egypt.

11:23 By faith Moses, after his birth, was hidden by his parents for three months, for they saw that the child was beautiful, and were not afraid of the king’s command .
The faith of Moses' parents, trusting in the mercy of their God, who gave them the promises of Abraham, helped them not to be afraid of Pharaoh and to violate his cruel order in the hope that God was able to protect His worshipers if He deemed it necessary.

11:24,25 By faith Moses, when he came of age, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter,
The faith of Moses' parents in the help of God Abraham and in His power to fulfill the promise of returning to the promised land was passed on over time to Moses himself: what prevented him from remaining the prince of Egypt, living in luxury and bliss when he became an adult? Only faith in your God and that He is able to fulfill all the promises to His people, and in what is better
25...to suffer with the people of God rather than to have the temporary pleasure of sin ,
For Moses, being in the company of God's people and doing the will of God, participating in the implementation of His intentions for mankind, was much more important than the possession of personal earthly pleasures

11:26-29 and he considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth for himself than the treasures of Egypt;
In this case, the “reproach of Christ” is the fate of God’s chosen one (Christ is the chosen one, the anointed one). Moses chose better to endure the difficulties and suffering of God's chosen one associated with fulfilling the will of God, rather than live in luxury, but have nothing to do with God. Why was Moses interested in the way of a man who believed in the unseen?

for he looked to the reward. Because Moses believed in the fulfillment of all the promises of God - in the future. And in order to achieve them in the distant future, he was ready to endure all the difficulties of the present:
27 By faith he left Egypt, not fearing the king's wrath, for he stood firm as if he had seen the invisible One.
28 By faith he kept the Passover and the shedding of blood, so that the destroyer of the firstborn would not touch them.
29 By faith they crossed the Red Sea as on dry land, which the Egyptians attempted and were drowned.
Thanks to faith in the Invisible One behind all the people of Israel, Moses bravely and steadfastly dealt with everything that befell him on the way to fulfilling God's will.

11:30 By faith the walls of Jericho fell, after a seven-day march.
How did Israel's strong faith contribute to the fall of the walls of Jericho?
You had to believe that by walking around the city and blowing the trumpets, the city walls would collapse.

It is impossible for a mere mortal to believe in such miracles. But worshipers of God understand that if you follow God’s commands exactly, then all His intentions will be fulfilled; they are taught to believe in the unseen.
Israel understood that the walls of Jericho would collapse not from manipulation of the pipes, but from how strong their trust in their God was: if they fulfill His will exactly, He would certainly destroy the walls of Jericho with His power.

11:31 By faith, Rahab the harlot, having received the spies in peace (and leading them through another path), did not perish with the infidels. Paul gives an example of strong faith in the true God - not only from the descendants of Abraham, but also from persons who have nothing to do with the people of God.

Rahab, through reflection on the great works of God, the rumor of which reached her, came to the right conclusion and decided to help God's people, and not her own. And although her contemporaries and compatriots might think that she betrayed her people by going over to the side of the enemies, the God of Abraham was pleased with Rahab’s faith and her “betrayal”: she became the ancestress of Jesus Christ.

Pleasing God is much more important than pleasing people, regardless of who they are: relatives, acquaintances, compatriots, etc.: after all, the future of any person is in the hands of God, not relatives or friends, not compatriots. Therefore, everyone who cares about their own future should not worry about the fact that, having chosen the path of faith and worship of the true God, the believer betrays NOT his own, but non-believers or those who believe in something completely wrong.
YOURS is the one who believes your God as you do (Matt. 12:48,49)
Therefore, when choosing the path of Christ, you are not betraying, but are simply making the right choice in favor of an eternal happy future in God’s world: even if a huge crowd of relatives or compatriots decides to go into the abyss, it is not at all necessary to obediently follow it, prudent and loving life always has the chance and opportunity to escape from it in time, or, if it is not possible to escape, then at least “put on” a means of salvation for believers, as in the Sardis congregation, for example (Rev. 3: 1-5).

Today, Christians who do not take up arms and refuse to learn to kill are considered traitors, unpatriots, assholes, and so on. And none of their accusers takes into account at all the opinion of God, which for these believers is much more authoritative than the opinion of the most decent patriots of this passing world.

11:32 And what else can I say? I do not have enough time to tell about Gideon, about Barak, about Samson and Jephthah, about David, Samuel and (other) prophets,
Note that Paul gives examples of the results of the power of faith not just of some worshipers of God, but precisely of those whose faith in the unseen was so strong that God called them to be His prophets and acted through them with His power - for the edification of all the rest of God's people, so that all the people can see WHAT a worshiper of God who has strong faith can do.
But in order to talk about the results of the power of faith in the unseen of all God's prophets it takes a very long time, Paul did not plan to do only this for the rest of his life. Therefore, he summarized the knowledge of antiquity, which the Jews were already well aware of, emphasizing the main idea of ​​​​the discussion about this:

11:33-35 who by faith conquered kingdoms, did righteousness, received promises, stopped the mouth of lions,
34 they quenched the power of fire, they escaped the edge of the sword, they were strengthened from weakness, they were strong in war, they drove away the regiments of strangers;
35 wives received their dead raised again; others were tortured without accepting liberation, so that receive a better resurrection;
All the prophets of God were ready to endure any difficulties and did not betray God even in the face of death due to the fact that they had strong faith in the unseen - that if they endure to the end and die, remaining faithful to their God, then He will certainly free them with the best liberation , than their persecutors would free them if they renounced God. God will free them from their graves and give them the opportunity to live forever in the wonderful future of God's new world. Otherwise, if there is no future, then there would be no point in enduring problems while maintaining righteousness.

11:36,37 others experienced insults and beatings, as well as chains and prison,
37 were stoned, sawn apart, tortured, died by the sword, wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, suffering deficiencies, sorrows, and bitterness;
This text is for those Christians of our time who think that their suffering in the world is great: modern secular society does not resort to such barbaric methods of combating believers as God’s prophets of old encountered.
Moreover, this way of life - in sorrow, shortcomings, cruel persecution and inhuman torture - very often accompanied them until their death.

Their whole life turned into a daily painful nightmare, in which it was necessary not only to remain optimistic, but also to draw strength in order to stand with a strong faith that God is aware of their trials and will certainly help in the future, but for now they They themselves must find the courage to cope with everything that comes their way because of the worship of God.

God, of course, supports them, but more often - morally, by the strength of His spirit, without freeing them from the difficulties of this age.
So modern life Christians - more like a resort than suffering for the path of Christ, we can thank God for at least bringing us into the light of this world, at least not in barbaric times.

11:38 those whom the whole world was not worthy of wandered through deserts and mountains, through caves and gorges of the earth.
Blatant injustice is characteristic only of this wicked age: the righteous suffer incredibly and often, while the wicked prosper in evil (2 Tim. 3:12,13). This state of affairs will be eliminated only in the era of God's system of government over the earth, starting with the 1000-year reign of Christ.

11: 39 And all these, who testified in faith, did not receive what was promised,
Paul's very important emphasis is on the fact that all those who are strong in faith in the unseen - WHILE LIVING in this age - did not receive anything of what was promised to them by God. But I must say, they did not expect to achieve all the promises of God in full - in this century, knowing that God had prepared a city for them in the distant FUTURE. Faith to the future a happy world - was the basis of their religion, it gave them the strength to endure this century, waiting for it to pass for each of them.

11: 40 because God has planned something better for us
Main idea Paul in this chapter: it was not for nothing that he listed the prophets of ancient times who were strong in faith and said that they did not achieve the promises of God relating to the distant future in the system of things of God.
It was important for him to emphasize the idea of ​​​​the opened possibilities of New Testament worship: God provided for the replacement of the Old Testament with the New so that the worshipers of God, redeemed by Christ and having him as a High Priest, would finally have the opportunity to achieve spiritual perfection, which the Old Testament could not give to the worshipers of God worship (Heb. 10:1)

God did all this in order to recruit future heavenly helpers for Christ to bring all of humanity, who did not have the opportunity to live during the operation of the new Testament, to perfection. First of all, all the servants of God of old, whose faith in the unseen confirmed their great desire to achieve perfection and the associated blessings of God in eternity, had to be brought to perfection:
so that they DO NOT achieve perfection WITHOUT US.

“Not without us” means “with our help.” With the help of those like the Apostle Paul - the future government of heaven, having been raised to life by Christ, all the faithful servants of God of old will be able to personally accept the one whom they saw with the eyes of faith - Jesus Christ, to know the power of his atonement and to feel the help of those who could to achieve spiritual perfection and the stature of Christ - even in this century (Rev. 20:6, 21:2)

It was this “city” - the reign of heavenly Jerusalem, in the light of which the saved nations of the earth would walk (Rev. 21:22-27) - that all the ancient servants of God expected, passing on from generation to generation Abraham’s promise of the eternal inheritance of the paradise earth with milk and honey , which in this century they only traveled as strangers.
Gen. 17:8 And I will give to you and to your descendants after you the land in which you wander, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God.