Hebrews 11 - Introduction

The exhortation to faith is interrupted by this great chapter, in which the power of faith is illustrated from the history of ancient Israel. It is assumed throughout the epistle that the old community and the new are bound up with one another. The promises which had been given to Israel, and which had inspired its national life ever since the beginning, are at last reaching their fulfilment in Christianity. In this chapter, therefore, the writer does not merely aim at encouraging his readers by the example of noble lives in the past; he wishes them to feel that the OT heroes were the vanguard of their own army, and that the battle must be won, as it has been fought hitherto, by means of faith.