Reply To: Grace And Faith 2024/2025 Discussion Board 1

[Chibuike Onyeogulu]

Reconciling the Tenth Pillars’ Claim that genuine faith “always receives the victory. In other words, wherever faith is exercised, it triumphs over obstacles and secures God’s purposes. Yet Hebrews 11:39 reminds us paradoxically that “all these, having obtained a good report through faith, did not receive what was promised”. How can faith both always win and yet leave its heroes without the very promises they trusted God to fulfill? In what follows we’ll explore three key points that resolve this tension:

1. Victory Defined by God’s Character and Eternal Purpose When Pillar 10 says faith “always receives the victory,” it presumes victory is rooted in God’s unchanging faithfulness, not our calendar or comfort. True faith looks beyond present circumstances to God’s eternal reputation and ultimate plan. The patriarchs and prophets “won” precisely because their trust was credited as righteousness (Gen 15:6), and they bore witness to God’s faithfulness even in suffering. Their lack of earthly fulfillment did not negate their victory; rather, it highlighted that faith is first and foremost a covenantal bond with God, anchored in His integrity. By this measure, faith never loses, because God—as covenant-maker and promise-keeper—cannot fail.

2. Faith’s Triumph in Christ’s Finished Work Hebrews 11:39 underscores that Old-Testament saints “did not receive what was promised,” yet Hebrews 12:1–2 invites us to fix our eyes on Jesus, “the pioneer and perfecter of faith.” The promises upon which Abraham, Moses, and others hoped to find their true substance in Christ’s life, death, and resurrection. When Jesus accomplishes redemption, He secures every promise of inheritance, rest, and kingship. Thus, the victory of faith is realized not in each individual promise at its temporal window, but in the person and work of Christ who embodies and guarantees them all. Every act of faith in the Old Covenant pointed forward to the cross and empty tomb—events that forever clinch the victory for every believer, past, present, and future.

3. Corporate and Eschatological Fulfillment A third dimension lies in the communal and future-oriented nature of God’s promises. Hebrews 11:40 explains that God “provided something better for us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect.” The final consummation of God’s kingdom awaits Christ’s return, when death is swallowed up in victory (1 Cor 15:54). Individual saints in isolation cannot experience the fullness of that day; it requires the gathered “great cloud of witnesses” running the race together. In this sense, faith’s victory is pilgrimage-shaped: we press on now, sustained by the assurance that every promise will find completion in the new heavens and new earth. Faith may not always yield the outcome we expect in our lifetimes, but it never loses because it deposits us into the grand, corporate fulfillment of God’s eternal covenant.

Conclusion
Far from contradicting the Tenth Pillars, Hebrews 11:39 refines our understanding of faith’s victory. Victory is never a guarantee of instant gratification; it is a guarantee of God’s ultimate triumph through Christ. By defining victory in terms of God’s unbreakable character, rooting our hope in the finished work of Jesus, and embracing the corporate and eschatological scope of God’s promises, we see that faith always wins—though sometimes it wins not according to our timetable, but according to God’s perfect design. Our role is to persevere, assured that genuine faith secures an eternal victory that not one of God’s promises will fail to honor.

Reference
• Church, P. 2012. Peter T. O’Brien, The Letter to the Hebrews. The Pillar New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010). Colloquium 44/1 (2012): 121-23.
• https://www.videobible.com/meaning/hebrews-11-39 accessed on 6/27/2025