Heb. 11:39.  And these all, having had witness borne to them through their faith, received not the promise, 40. God having provided some better thing concerning us, that apart from us, they should not be made perfect.

  IN these closing verses we have the summing up of the chapter. The superior excellence of the New Testament is stated to be this, that we have some better thing, something perfect, which the saints had waited for but had never seen. We are told of them what it was that they had, and what they had not. These all, having had witness borne them through their faith, received not the promise. They received not the promise. There were indeed certain promises of which they received the fulfillment (see 6: 15; 11: 33). But the great promise of Jesus Christ and His redemption and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, the better promises of the better covenant, these they received not. They died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them from afar and embraced them. They saw, and rejoiced in the promises, into the full possession of which it is our privilege to enter.

They received them not, but they had witness borne to them through their faith (see 11: 2, 4, 6). The living God, who had given them the promise, and was waiting His own time for the fulfillment, gave them witness through faith that they were pleasing to Him. The witness borne to Abel that he was righteous, and to Enoch that he pleased God, was given to them all. God was not ashamed to be called their God, and to let them know it. With all the difference between their faith and ours, in regard to the clearness of the revelation and the actual possession of the promise, in this their faith was one with ours—the unseen God revealed Himself to them and was their God.

They received not the promise, God having provided some better thing concerning us, that they apart from us should not be made perfect. The two words here, better and perfect, are the words which characterize the new dispensation, the time of the fulfillment of the promise. We said before, the word "better" occurs thirteen times. Christ has inherited a better name; He has brought us a better hope; He is the surety of a better covenant enacted in better promises; in Him we have the better country and the better substance. To them God spake in the prophets; to us in the Son. To them was offered the rest of Canaan; to us the rest of God. Their high priest was a man who died; ours is a Priest for ever, in the power of an endless life. Their sanctuary was on earth, and even that had its veil; ours is the true sanctuary, with the veil taken away. Theirs was the old covenant, in which there was no power to continue; ours is the new, with the heart made new by the Spirit. Theirs was the blood of bulls and of goats, ours is the blood of Jesus. Theirs was a sanctifying cleanness of the flesh; ours is the cleansing of the heart from the evil conscience. Theirs a worship which made nothing perfect; in ours we are perfected for evermore. Their worship was a witness that the way into the Holiest was not yet open; ours is the blessed experience that in the new and living way we have living access into the very presence and love of the Father. God hath indeed provided some better thing for us.

That apart from us they should not be made perfect. The better thing God has provided is perfection. The word perfect is used fourteen times in the Epistle (see 5: 14). The law made nothing perfect. Jesus was Himself, in His obedience and suffering, made perfect in His human nature, in His will and life and character, that He might have a true, new, perfect human life to communicate to us. As the Son perfected for evermore He is our High Priest, who having perfected us for ever in His sacrifice, now brings us, in the communication of that perfection, into real, inner, living contact with God. And so He is the Perfecter of our faith  makes us His perfect ones, who press on unto perfection. And our life on earth is meant to be the blessed experience that God perfects us in every good thing to do His will, working in us that which is pleasing in His sight. Apart from us they might not be made perfect; to us the blessing of some better thing, of being made perfect, has come.

My fellow-Christians, the old saints had only the promise; we have the thing promised, the divine reality, the full inherit­ance of what were to them only the good things to come. The promise was sufficient to make them live a wonderful life of faith. What ought not the effect to be in our lives of having obtained the promises, having entered on the possession of that of which the mere promise stirred them so ? As much greater as deliverance is than the hope of it, as a divine possession is than the promise of it, so much greater is the better, the perfect thing God has provided for us, so much greater ought to be the joy and the holiness and the nearness to God, and the power of our lives. Is it so ?

If not, the reason must be plain. We do not accept the possession with the intensity with which they accepted the promise. Our whole Epistle was written to expose this evil, and to set before us the glory of the better, the perfect thing God has provided for us in Christ. Shall we not listen to the witness of the heroes of our faith in the days when the sun had not yet risen, and let ourselves be ashamed out of our worldliness and sloth? If we will but yield ourselves to the glorious perfection-truths of our Epistle, the perfection of our High Priest and His work, and press on unto it, He to whom it has been given to work His work in us in the power of an endless life, and so to save completely, will reveal in us that better and perfect thing as we have never yet known it. By faith they obtained the promises. By faith the fulfillment of every promise will be made true to us in the power of the Pentecostal Spirit, who comes from the throne of our great High Priest.

1. Wherefore holy brethren, partakers of a heavenly calling, consider Jesus. It is He has done a//: It is He who, as much, must do all now. It Is He makes the Holiest of All, and the entrance into it, and the life there to serve the living God, a living continual reality. if hitherto thou hast been living without the veil, do believe God has provided some better thing for thee too.

2. He does this In the power of the Holy Spirit dwelling within us. Christ redeemed us, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. The Holy Spirit is the all-inclusive blessing of the better covenant. It is His to bring Jesus and heaven and the power of an endless life into us, and keep us in it.

3. May God reveal to us what Abraham's going out from his country, what Moses' choice of suf^fering and reproach, what Israel's leaving Egypt means. If we are ready to forsake all, we shall inherit all.