Hebrews 11:19 gives Abraham’s calculus on this: “He considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he did receive Him back.” His belief caused him to follow God confidently even when doing so didn’t make clear sense to him. He didn’t stop trusting God because his circumstances got complicated. He completely trusted God’s heart. Consequently, he was called a friend of God (2 Chronicles 20:7, Isaiah 41:8).
Jesus told His disciples a similar thing: “I no longer call you servants because a servant doesn’t know His master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from My Father I have made known to you” (John 15:5). Jesus framed the idea of friendship in terms of disclosure, or revelation. God has been friendly to us by showing us all we need to know to follow Him. We have no excuses, really.
Why do we know who Rahab was (Joshua 1-8)? Because her faith, kindled by testimony of God’s power and work, caused her to act and receive the spies that Joshua sent ahead of the taking of Jericho. She hid them, gave them wise counsel, and misled the king of Jericho so that they could escape and report. She also made provision for her family’s safety. Rahab, a harlot, ended up in the genealogy of Jesus. She became the great, great, great, grandmother of King David. Her story illustrates that there are no barriers to who God can rescue and use, but her life—the actions she took following her confession of belief—strongly confirmed a living, credible faith.
That’s the way faith looks in the Bible. It’s never just assent to a group of propositions. It always presses the person who responds to God into a crisis that will require adjustment and action.
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