Hebrews 11

Wesley: they saw—doubtless with a divine presage of things to come—and were not afraid of the king’s commandment.

Wesley’s heirs hear parental faith that fears God more than the edict. Beauty here is read with promise-sense, not mere sentiment. Courage to hide is faith’s fruit for the child’s life.

Calvin: induced to save him because God had promised a deliverer under oppression; they relied on that promise. Some mark of future excellency inspired hope of approaching deliverance. Their faith, though weak, was so approved as to secure Moses’ life, on which the Church’s deliverance depended.

Promise-reliant courage, not fearlessness as temperament. God approved even weak faith that preferred the infant’s safety.

Wesley: refused to be called—any longer—the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. Grown-up faith renounces false belonging.

This is a deliberate refusal: identity with God’s people over palace title. Hearers likewise must refuse names that deny their calling.

Calvin: when of mature age, not by boyish levity, he disregarded the adoption. By visiting and relieving his brethren he proved he preferred his own nation. He could not have done so without being persuaded of the blessing promised to Abraham’s race—whose only witness was God’s promise.

Mature faith renounces Egypt’s name because it has seen the promise afar.

Wesley does not pause here with a long gloss; the choice is plain in the text he elsewhere frames by looking off to the reward (v. 26).

Classical Arminians find an alternative set before Moses and before us: mistreatment with God’s people, or fleeting sinful pleasure. Faith chooses the people and the hardship.

Calvin: shun as deadly poison whatever cannot be enjoyed without offending God; pleasures of sin are allurements that draw us from God and our calling. Temporary pleasures vanish with life itself. He chose affliction with the people of God—otherwise he could not avow himself one of God’s people.

Choosing mistreatment is faith’s separation to the Church; fleeting pleasure is unbelief’s bait.

Wesley: the reproach of Christ—that which he bore for believing in the Messiah to come, and acting accordingly. He looked off from perishing treasures unto the recompence of reward—not Canaan, which he never attained, but what his believing ancestors looked for: a future state of happiness in heaven.

The verse presses looking to the reward as holy motive for enduring reproach. Greater wealth is Christ’s reproach now; the recompense is heavenly. Faith’s eyes train off Egypt toward promised joy.

Calvin: those God has chosen He has also foreordained to be conformed to the Son’s image—not all by the same cross, but none may decline the cross in common with Christ. He had eyes fixed on God’s promise. Faith as to righteousness before God does not look on reward but on God’s gratuitous goodness and Christ alone; yet faith, embracing every word of God, has respect to the reward promised—without this having place in free justification.

Reproach of Christ is wealth; reward-hope is faith’s embrace of promise, not merit that purchases justification.

Wesley: by faith he left Egypt, taking the Israelites; not then fearing the wrath of the king—as he did many years before. He endured as seeing Him who is invisible.

Listen here for endurance fueled by sight of the Invisible. Fear of the king yields when God is seen. Pastoral call: endure by that sight.

Calvin: wonderful strength of faith to bring out an untrained multitude and hope God would open a way. True faith sets God always before our eyes; beholds higher things in God than senses perceive; a view of God alone strengthens weakness to withstand Satan’s assaults. The weaker and less resolute, the less faith.

Seeing the Invisible is faith’s office; endurance is its fruit, not stoic grit.

Wesley: the pouring out of the blood of the paschal lamb, sprinkled on the door-posts, lest the destroying angel should touch the Israelites.

Arminian interpreters hear Passover faith: blood sprinkled because God said so, before the Destroyer’s pass was seen. Shelter under the blood is for those who believe and keep what God appointed.

Calvin: kept by faith not merely because the lamb typified Christ, but because its benefit did not yet appear when doorposts were sprinkled. Satisfied with God’s word alone that the people would be exempt, Moses did not hesitate. Faith acquiesces in the word when the effect is hid.

Sprinkling is obedience of faith to a not-yet-seen deliverance. The Destroyer is stayed by God’s appointed blood, received by faith.

Wesley: they—Moses, Aaron, and the Israelites—passed the Red Sea. Faith crosses where presumption drowns.

Arminians hear the same path taken two ways: by faith unto life, by unbelieving assay unto death. The sea is not magic; trust in God’s word makes the difference.

Calvin: many in that multitude were unbelieving; yet the Lord granted to the faith of a few that the whole multitude should pass. Faith’s crossing condemns Egypt’s copy without faith.

God honors faith; unbelieving imitation of the form perishes. Deliverance is the Lord’s through faith.

Wesley: by the faith of Joshua. Seven days of obedient circling precede the fall.

The passage carries patient, odd obedience that faith sustains until walls fall. Methods that look foolish are wise when God has spoken.

Calvin ascribes Jericho’s fall to faith—walls down after the word-commanded circuit. Faith waits God’s timing through seven days of apparent futility.

The fall is God’s act meeting faith’s obedience. Do not credit the march as technique; credit the God who spoke.

Wesley: Rahab—though formerly one not of the fairest character—perished not with them that believed not, when she received the spies with peace.

Arminian interpreters hear mercy to a scandalous past where faith welcomes God’s messengers. She did not perish with the disobedient; belief and hospitality mark the difference. Hope for unlikely hearers.

Calvin: by faith Rahab perished not with the unbelieving when she received the spies with peace. Faith separated her from the disobedient city.

She is saved with God’s people by faith, not by prior respectability. Disobedience perishes; faith receives and lives.