The Faith of Moses and Rahab
Moses and Rahab are unlikely people to share the title of an article like this one. It is the writer of the epistle/sermon to the Hebrews who brings the names together for us (Heb 11:23, 31). A Hebrew man and a Gentile woman, some 1400 years before Christ, were not presumed to have much in common. The fact that this man was the leading Israelite of his day is set in contrast with this woman being a prostitute. He led a nation (and an angry murderer). She lured men to her bed for a living.
The account of their intersection occurs for us in the “faith chapter” of the Bible…Hebrews 11. The chronological sequence is easily detected in this chapter. The reader moves from Abel to Enoch to Noah to Abraham and the patriarchs, before coming to the record of Moses. As the exodus from Egypt transitions to the conquest of Canaan in biblical history, we remember the faithless forty years of the Israelites in the wilderness, set as a foil in the context of these episodes.
Moses’ parents were slaves in Egypt during the time when Pharaoh decided to conduct a genocide on the new born males in the company of God’s chosen people. Yahweh countered by giving the Israelites a deliverer; and a type of Christ. Moses was born; and his parents knew there was something special about their baby boy (Heb 11:23).
They preserved their baby in dramatic disobedience to the law of the land. God’s providence even placed Moses in the house of Pharaoh, the very law giver demanding the death of Hebrew baby boys. In this, we see how faith defied the dictates of the diabolical despot. The believer’s faith in God is always his or her victory (2 Cor 2:14; 1 Jn 5:4). The world is at enmity with God; and its evil deeds persist in every generation and in every place. Two groups of people are formed by allegiance to or estrangement from God.
Faith in God is tested because it is the true manifestation of allegiance. Faithful ones are proven by their obedience to Yahweh, despite the cost of denying deference to the world. Pharaoh and Egypt are biblical types of Antichrist and a rebellious world system of human power and self-sufficiency.
Moses appears in the “hall of faith” because of his choice to side with the suffering slaves. His choice to deny himself power, privilege, and pleasure in Egypt is the result of the faith granted to him by Yahweh. Moses like us, realized that friendship with the world is enmity with God (Jas 4:4). We cannot serve two masters (Mt 6:24; Lk 16:13); thus, faith chooses God and the reproach of Christ (Heb 11:26).
Christ is the Word of God (Jn 1:1, 14). Moses did what Yahweh told him to do. He heard the Word; believed the Word; and obeyed the Word with his actions. Leaving Egypt makes Egypt look bad, as when a Christian chooses not to participate in the debauchery of a wicked, sensuous culture. To do the will of God is our ambition (2 Cor 5:9).
The people of God’s own possession are not the possession of the devil, nor his minions who pretend they are gods, upon their respective thrones in capitol cities. Pharaoh made promises to Moses in the same way the serpent made promises to our first parents (Gen 3). Men cannot deliver on their promised reward for allegiance. This is true of governments, corporations, institutions, and structures of religion.
Faith in God’s Word of promise requires a departure from the world, “Come out of her My people…” (Rev 18:4). Moses left Egypt. Egypt was not happy that the holy ones were being set apart. When the wrath of Pharaoh was threated, even executed, God’s people were not afraid. They knew whom they had believed; and they were convinced of His ability to deliver them regardless of the encroaching darkness.
Every step of the journey of faith has peculiar circumstances that require one’s trust in the Word of God. The Passover was a strange command of Yahweh; but obedience on that night was rewarded. The Israelite sons lived; while the firstborn sons of Egypt met the angel of death. Simply put, the wrath of kings is no match for the wrath of God.
The Red Sea crossing also came with a reward for faith’s obedient response to the Word of God. God delivered His chosen people from the oppression of the Egyptians, in what is seen as their national baptism (Ex 14). They passed through the waters of death and came out alive on the other side. The reprobate Egyptians did not fare so well, as they drowned in the same location. Unbelievers have no place with the children of God.
Some Gentiles, some women, and even some prostitutes have their lot with the elect. In Christ, there is no distinction regarding the saved remnant — Jew, Gentile, male, female, slave or free (Gal 3:28). All believers are knit together in love, in the Spirit of Christ. True believers all look to Him in faith, as did the harlot Rahab.
Rahab heard of Yahweh’s dealings with the Israelites. She made peace with God by submitting to His will, as manifest by faith put into action. She helped the Israelites to fulfill their mission trip into Canaan. Her reward was life. Those who resist Christ’s church, and the advance of the kingdom of God in the world, are doomed to destruction under the just judgment of God. In helping Christ’s church (Israelites), the remnant believers departing the world (Egypt), Rahab earned her place in the faith chapter.
Moses and Rahab both played their part in Yahweh’s unfolding drama of redemption, where faith is rewarded and unbelief is hostile to the purposes of God…and ultimately punished. The reader of Hebrews is taught that it is impossible to please God without faith (11:6). The wide way of destruction is traversed by the people of the world, who have no love for God in their hearts because they are void of the Holy Spirit because they do not belong to Christ (Jn 5:42; 10:26; 14:17).
It is encouraging for us who believe in Christ, to see the diversity in the body of Christ, God’s chosen people from every nation (Rev 5:9; 7:9). God grants faith to a whole variety of unlikely people (1 Cor 1:26; Phil 1:29). What unites us is God Himself, as revealed in the Person and work of Jesus Christ, our one Leader (Mt 23:10), who delivers us from the wrath to come (1 Thess 1:10).
David Norczyk
Spokane Valley, Washington
April 30, 2024
Hebrews 11:23–31
