Hero of the Faith
In my twenty years as a Christian, I've heard countless lectures and read many articles and books about the lives of "heroes" of the faith. The lectures and shorter writings tended to highlight great accomplishments, agonizing bravery, and unmistakable turns of divine providence—inspiring and motivational fare. As a new believer I gobbled up material like this, amazed by the great works accomplished and great influence achieved, wondering all along if such godliness and success could come out of my life and what in the lives of these notable figures could I hope to emulate.
My appetite whetted, I moved on to reading full-length biographies. It was then that I was faced with something I had by-and-large missed before: these men were flesh and blood sinners. Many of the people I thought of as heroes of the faith had committed horrible—sometimes tragic—sins. And, almost without exception, each of them clung to some belief or practice I find deplorable (e.g. anti-Semitism or slavery).
This is one of many good reasons to read thorough and objective biographies of those we regard highly (and those we don’t!). When we limit ourselves to content that focuses on the inspirational high-water marks in the lives of the saints, we risk losing sight of something more important: God. We can begin to see the successes in the lives of Christians as the result of their faithfulness rather than God’s. We look for neat and tidy correlation between obedience and favorable results. Then we begin to see our successes as ours, the result of our spirituality and obedience, and become inwardly (or even openly) haughty. Or, conversely, we see how obviously we fall short of such perceived greatness and despair of ever being used by God.
The Bible, however, does not portray its “heroes” in the manner we are prone to portraying ours. Rather, Scripture openly records their sins, and yet declares them righteous. Consider the "great cloud of witnesses" in the eleventh chapter of Hebrews: Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Jacob, Moses, Samson, and David, to name a few. Or consider "righteous Lot" (2 Pt. 2:7). Each of their lives were marred by sin (which God saw fit to record for posterity), yet God characterizes them by their faith.
We miss the point when we treat their heroic moments as morality tales—lessons on how to earn and keep God's favor or “slay our giants”—arrogantly thinking that we can be holier than Abraham or as mighty as Moses or David if we set our minds to it, as though we could muster up a faith like theirs on our own.
What, then, are we to do with them?
The writer of Hebrews tells us to look to them as people like us—sinful people who persisted in faith. Looking to them we see a people who lived through trials and temptations, through success and failure, repenting of sin as they looked in faith and hope to the promised Savior who would one day make them and us perfectly clean and new, and facing death clinging to that hope:
And all these, though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God had provided something better for us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect. Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God (Heb. 11:39-12:2).
Peter likewise tells us,
Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully, inquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories. It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but you, in the things that have now been announced to you through those who preached the good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which angels long to look (1 Pt 1:11-12).
Isn’t it strange to think that while we look back at these Old Testament saints, Scripture tells us that they were actively looking forward to us? They understood that the promises in which they trusted would not be fulfilled in their lifetimes but in ours—in the days of the promised Messiah, the Christ and the New Covenant he would inaugurate.
When we look back at the lives of the saints of old, it is not to see their greatness (and learn how we, too, can be great), but the greatness of the God they trusted, not their faithfulness, but the faithfulness of God. We look to them as we look to someone standing on the street corner pointing their finger; we immediately turn our eyes from them to what they are pointing at. That is, we look to Jesus, “For all the promises of God find their Yes in him” (2 Co 1:20a).
It was only as the saints of old believed God’s promise of salvation that works of faith flowed. And it is only as we look to Christ that we will fulfill the works of faith (big or small, public or private) that he has prepared for us, “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them” (Ep 2:10). “[I]t is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure” (Php 2:13), and “He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus” (Php 1:6b). It is God who initiated our walk of faith, and it is He who will bring it to completion. Our task is to look to Christ: "And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit" (2 Co. 3:18).
We are not the authors of our own biographies;. God is. Our lives find their significance only in the context of Scripture, which is the biography of his Son. So, when we look at our lives, it is not wise to interpret the turns of Providence prematurely. The seeming failures, the sinful moments, and the sacred conquests can only be understood from the perspective of eternity. Like those who went before us, we will go to our graves without all the answers, trusting in God "who works all things according to the counsel of his will," (Eph 1:11) and eager for the fulfillment of His plan "which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth" (Eph. 1:9-10).
So, when you look to the saints of old, look less at them, and more to the One to whom they pointed, to the Author and Finisher of their faith and ours. If you emulate anything, let it be their hope in Christ, who is the hero of all their stories:
These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth . . . as it is, they desire a better country that is a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city (Heb. 11:13,16).
