35 Women received back their dead, raised to life again. There were others who were tortured, refusing to be released so that they might gain an even better resurrection. 36 Some faced jeers and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. ~ Hebrews 11:35-36
In the Bible faith and belief are used interchangeably. However, one can have false faith or incomplete belief, which is inadequate. The difference is not between the two words but in the object faith or belief. Having said that, we must be careful to differentiate between weak and mature faith. We have seen in our study of Hebrews 11 the difference between these two, and yet, the key to it all is the object of our faith and belief.
As we come back to our study of faith in Hebrews 11, we read in v.35 of today's passage, "Women received back their dead, raised to life again. There were others who were tortured, refusing to be released so that they might gain an even better resurrection."
In the latter part of this chapter we have seen the achievements of the God of Old Testament believers' faith in the midst of great difficulty. These "women who received back their dead, and raised to life again" include the widow in 1 Kings 17 whose son was awakened out of death by Elijah. It also refers to the Shunammite woman in 2 Kings 4 whose son was raised by Elisha.
In 1 Kings 17 we read of the prophet Elijah and the widow from Zarephath. The chapter notes that the Lord was withholding rain from Israel. The drought was in judgment of the nation’s rampant idolatry, led by the royal couple Ahab and Jezebel. The Lord commanded Elijah to go to Zarephath, a gentile town outside Israel, to a widow who would provide him many meals even though she had very little. Then, one day, the woman’s son one day died of an illness and, in her anger and grief, the widow blamed Elijah for his death. She wrongly assumed God was judging her for her sin. But Elijah cried out to God, and the son was restored to life.
The Lord Jesus referenced this story in His teaching, He said, "In truth, I tell you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the heavens were shut up three years and six months, and a great famine came over all the land, and Elijah was sent to none of them but only to Zarephath, in the land of Sidon, to a woman who was a widow."
Elijah found more faith outside of Israel than within it. God often uses unlikely people and sources to accomplish His purposes.
In 2 Kings 4 we read of the Shunammite woman whose son was raised from the dead by Elisha. This woman was a wealthy married woman who rented a guest room to Elisha, acknowledging him as a prophet of God. Elisha often passed that way in his travels, and he stayed in the guest room. Elisha asked his servant how he could help the woman in return for her hospitality. His servant mentioned that she had no son and her husband was old. Elisha then called the woman and told her she would have a son by that time next year. The prophecy was fulfilled, and the woman had a child, but the story was not over.
Several years later, the child came down with some kind of sickness, and he died in his mother’s lap. She immediately found Elisha and asked him to come heal her son. When Elisha came into the house, he saw the child lying dead on his bed. So he went in and shut the door behind the two of them and prayed to the LORD. Then he went up and lay on the child. And as he stretched himself upon him, the flesh of the child became warm. Then the child sneezed seven times, and then his eyes opened. This Shunammite woman’s sincere faith led to an amazing series of events. And it all began with her desperation.
The Greek word translated "tortured" in v.35 included an instrument that had a wheel-shaped contraption over which criminals were stretched as though they were skins. And they would have all their extremities stretched to the circumference of the wheel, and they would rotate on the wheel while people pummeled them with clubs. These maintained their allegiance to the God of the Bible, enduring the most vicious treatment known to man.
In v.36 of today's passage we read, "Some faced jeers and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment."
This verse is yet another reference to those who had mature faith in the God of the Bible. These had experienced God's involvement in their lives so much that they were enabled to endure anything for their trust in God.
In Jeremiah 37, it is recorded that the prophet Jeremiah was scourged, whipped and imprisoned for simply speaking the word of the Lord to a nation who didn’t want to hear it. Jeremiah was imprisoned in a muddy cistern and left to starve to death when the city’s bread was used up. Thankfully he was rescued. Whether we are rescued or not, the stronger our faith is in the Lord, the more we will suffer for His glory.
If believing in Christ could possibly mean we could even lose our lives, then why do it? We obviously would not do this to gain entry into heaven because it is only through Christ that anyone will ever get into heaven. This is the consequence of sanctifying faith because sanctifying faith takes us from knowing about the Lord Jesus to knowing Him personally and experientially for ourselves.
The Apostle Paul tells us in Philippians 3 that he ran these risks in order to "know Christ and the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings." And, the more we know the reality of Christ, the more he will live for the invisible and eternal world that is to come. You see, the believer who is growing in faith in the Lord Jesus, sees life differently than those who do not know the residence of God. Knowing the Lord Jesus causes the believer to be defined by that which the Lord Jesus values.
