“By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed by going out to a place which he was to receive for an inheritance; and he went out, not knowing where he was going. By faith he lived as a stranger in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, fellow heirs of the same promise; for he was looking for the city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God.”
— Hebrews 11:8–10
Hebrews 11 has already introduced us to Abel, Enoch, and Noah. With Abraham, however, the writer slows down. His story occupies a substantial portion of the chapter because Abraham’s life gives us several different pictures of what it means to live by faith.
The first is surprisingly simple.
God told Abraham to go, and Abraham went.
What makes the story remarkable is that Abraham did not know exactly where he was going.
We often think faith means knowing what God is going to do and confidently expecting Him to do it. Abraham’s story introduces another possibility. Sometimes faith means knowing very little about what will happen while knowing enough about the One who has spoken.
Abraham Had a Promise, Not a Map
Genesis 12 records God’s call:
“Go from your country, and from your relatives and from your father’s house, to the land which I will show you.”— Genesis 12:1
There is something almost uncomfortable about that sentence.
God tells Abraham what to leave but does not initially tell him where the journey will end.
Hebrews deliberately notices this:
“He went out, not knowing where he was going.”
Abraham wasn’t wandering aimlessly. God had spoken, and therefore his journey had direction even though Abraham did not possess all the details.
That distinction matters.
Biblical faith is not taking random risks and hoping God will bless them. Abraham had received a word from God. His uncertainty concerned the destination, not the One who had called him.
There are times when we want the reverse. We would prefer God to show us the destination, explain the route, tell us how long it will take, identify every difficulty along the way, and then invite us to trust Him.
Abraham received considerably less information.
Yet he went.
His Obedience Came From Faith
Hebrews says:
“By faith Abraham… obeyed.”
That order fits beautifully with the gospel.
Abraham’s obedience was not an attempt to persuade God to make him an heir. The promise originated with God before Abraham could accomplish anything toward its fulfillment.
God called. God promised.
Abraham believed what he had heard, and his obedience grew out of that confidence.
This is important when we read Hebrews from the perspective of Christ’s finished work. Christian obedience should never become an attempt to complete what Jesus left unfinished.
Christ has already reconciled us to God. Our righteousness is found in Him. We have been brought near through His blood and given access to the Father. Nothing we do can improve the sacrifice that Hebrews has spent so many chapters describing as perfect.
So why obey?
Because faith has consequences for how we live.
When you trust someone, you take their words seriously. Abraham’s departure from his homeland was simply his confidence in God becoming visible.
Then Abraham Arrived—and Still Didn’t Have It
Verse 9 introduces a part of Abraham’s story that is easy to miss.
“By faith he lived as a stranger in the land of promise, as in a foreign land…”
Imagine finally arriving at the place God promised you, only to discover that you will spend the rest of your life living there as a foreigner.
Abraham reached Canaan, but he did not immediately possess Canaan.
In fact, when Sarah died, Genesis 23 tells us that Abraham had to purchase a burial place from the Hittites. He had received a promise concerning the land, yet he still had to negotiate for somewhere to bury his wife.
Hebrews finds that tension important.
Abraham was living in the land of promise, while simultaneously living there as in a foreign land.
Faith therefore involved more than taking the first step out of Ur. It also involved living for years with a promise whose fulfillment remained incomplete.
That is much closer to ordinary Christian experience than we sometimes admit.
There are things God has declared about us in Christ that are already true, while their fullest expression is still ahead of us.
We have eternal life, yet our bodies still die. We belong to God’s kingdom, while we continue living in a broken world.
We have been made righteous in Christ, while our minds are still being renewed and our lives are being transformed.
We have come to God through Christ, yet we still await the day when faith becomes sight.
Theologians often describe this as the “already and not yet” of the Christian life.
Abraham knew something about living there.
Why Does Hebrews Mention the Tents?
Abraham lived in tents with Isaac and Jacob.
That detail might seem incidental, but verse 10 explains why the writer includes it:
“For he was looking for the city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God.”
The contrast between a tent and a city with foundations would have been obvious.
A tent is movable and temporary. Abraham could wake up, pull up the stakes, and move elsewhere.
A city with foundations suggests permanence.
Abraham had been promised an earthly inheritance, but Hebrews sees his hope reaching beyond Canaan itself. He was looking toward something God would establish.
This becomes even clearer a few verses later:
“But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one.”
— Hebrews 11:16
So Hebrews is not reducing Abraham’s promise to a piece of real estate in the ancient Near East. The land mattered, and God’s historical promises to Abraham mattered, but the writer sees within those promises a trajectory toward something greater.
Abraham was ultimately waiting for what only God could build.
The City Abraham Was Looking For
The Greek in verse 10 is interesting.
God is described as the city’s τεχνίτης (technitēs), its designer or craftsman, and δημιουργός (dēmiourgos), its maker or builder.
The security of Abraham’s future therefore did not depend upon what Abraham could construct for himself.
This man became wealthy. He had servants, livestock, influence, and considerable resources. Genesis portrays him as anything but destitute.
Yet Hebrews does not tell us that Abraham responded to God’s promise by constructing his own permanent city.
He waited for God’s.
That is particularly meaningful in light of what Hebrews has already taught us about Christ.
The Christian life is founded upon something God has accomplished, rather than something we are trying to construct for ourselves. Our relationship with God rests upon Christ’s priesthood, Christ’s blood, Christ’s righteousness, and Christ’s finished sacrifice.
Abraham looked forward.
We live on the other side of the cross.
And Hebrews will eventually make an extraordinary statement about this city:
“But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem…”— Hebrews 12:22
The language changes from expectation to arrival: “you have come.”
Something Abraham saw from a distance has become ours through Christ.
Its complete visible manifestation is still future, but our citizenship and belonging are already settled.
Faith Doesn’t Require Knowing the Whole Story
There is an important lesson here about guidance.
Christians can become anxious about discovering God’s exact plan for every detail of life. We want certainty about the job, the move, the marriage, the ministry, the financial decision, or what the next ten years are supposed to look like.
Abraham reminds us that knowing God is more fundamental than knowing the itinerary.
That does not mean every uncertain decision is automatically an act of faith. Abraham had actually heard from God. We should be careful about attaching God’s name to our own impulses and then calling the result faith.
The point is simpler. When God has clearly revealed something, we can trust Him without understanding everything that follows from it.
For us, much of what He has revealed is already written plainly in Scripture. We know His character. We know what He has accomplished in Christ. We know where the story ultimately ends.
Many details between here and there remain unknown.
Apparently, God does not consider that a problem.
Living From What God Has Already Given
A finished-work understanding of this passage protects us from turning Abraham into another religious burden.
It would be easy to read Hebrews 11:8 and walk away thinking, I need to do something enormous for God. I need my own Abraham moment.
But Hebrews is not giving us a formula for becoming impressive Christians.
The chapter is showing what happens when people take God at His word.
Abraham’s confidence was not confidence in Abraham. His life contained plenty of failures, questionable decisions, fear, and moments when he tried to manage God’s promise himself.
The remarkable part of the story is God’s faithfulness. The promise survived Abraham’s mistakes.
Eventually Isaac was born, not because Abraham had perfectly managed the process, but because God remained faithful to what He had said.
That matters for us.
Faith does not mean maintaining enough spiritual intensity to keep God’s promises alive. Our security rests in Christ, and His work has already been completed. We now learn to live from that reality, even while parts of our lives still look more like tents than cities.
Perhaps the Tent Is Not a Sign That Something Went Wrong
Abraham spent much of his life between promise and fulfillment.
If he had judged God’s faithfulness solely by his immediate circumstances, there would have been plenty of reasons to wonder. The land had been promised, but other people occupied it. A son had been promised, but Sarah remained childless for years.
Still, Hebrews looks back and calls this life faith.
That should challenge the assumption that God’s faithfulness must always produce immediate visible results.
There may be areas of our lives where we know what God has said in Christ while our experience has not yet caught up with it. The answer is not to manufacture certainty or pretend the tension does not exist.
Abraham lived in the tension.
His tent stood on promised ground.
And perhaps that is one of the loveliest pictures in Hebrews 11. Abraham could live in something temporary because his confidence rested in something permanent. He did not need to build his final home because God had already taken responsibility for the city.
For those of us who are in Christ, that hope has become even clearer.
We know who brought us near.
We know where our righteousness comes from.
We know whose kingdom we belong to.
And although we do not know every turn between here and the fulfillment of all things, we know the One who has already secured our place there.
Leave a Reply