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. (Hebrews 11:16)
I know of nowhere else in Scripture that speaks so explicitly about God not being ashamed.
Hebrews 2:11 says that Jesus “is not ashamed to call [his people] brothers,” which is a similar thought. But I can’t find another text that talks about God not being ashamed.
It is a striking thought to entertain. What could Hebrews mean (even hypothetically) by the idea of God not being ashamed?
For one, God is holy, and never does anything shameful. He himself is the final standard for what in his creatures is shameful or not. In principle, as the one true God, he cannot be rightfully shamed. He is not subject to the frailties and weaknesses and sins of his creatures. God could never actually be put to shame.
So, what is Hebrews communicating by negating such an impossible possibility? Why does he claim that God is not ashamed to be called our God if we have the kind of persevering faith in him that Hebrews 11 celebrates?
History of Faith
The letter to the Hebrews is a written sermon. The writer, who plainly possesses the abilities of a skilled preacher, humbly calls his epistle a “word of exhortation” (Hebrews 13:22). And if it is sermon-like, we might expect to find its rhetorical climax about three-fourths of the way through — which is precisely what we find in Hebrews 11.
Here at the height of his message, he takes up the sermonic refrain “By faith . . . By faith . . . By faith” and walks us from creation to flood to high points in Israel’s long and dynamic history, drawing lessons about the life of persevering faith from one beloved forefather after another.
As the rhetorical climax, Hebrews 11 is the most memorable part of the sermon, leading us up to the highest point in 12:1–2, where Jesus is the climactic man of faith, the author and perfecter of ours.
While narrating this great history of faith, Hebrews makes four editorial comments (in verses 6, 13–16, 32, and 38). By far, the one in verses 13–16 is the longest and most significant. Here, in his longest aside, he pulls back the curtain to reveal the very heart of the chapter and what he wants his hearers to get from this stirring rehearsal of biblical history.
Verse 16 is his last flourish in this longest aside. Those with saving, persevering faith are not those who reminisce about the past and soon go back to where they came from, but they look forward to the future. They desire something better, that is, something of heaven. Then comes the arresting statement:
Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.
Greatly Desired, Greatly Honored
One way into this marvelous claim is to ask, What is the opposite of shame? What would it mean for God not to be shamed? Answer: honored. Receiving honor is the converse of being put to shame. So, we might turn it around and put verse 16 like this: God is honored to be the God of those who desire his heavenly city. He is honored, he gets praise, he receives glory when the people who bear his name desire something better in him than what this world apart from him has to offer.
The ESV’s “they desire a better country” in verse 16 is understandable. Place has been in view in the context: the homeland of verses 14–15. But verse 16 is more expansive than just geography. We might render the Greek, “they desire something better.” And Hebrews adds, “that is, [something] of heaven.” They desire something better than a temporal, earthly homeland; they look for an eternal, heavenly one. And the next chapter fills out this “city of the living God” not in terms of impersonal buildings and roads and parks (material as it will be!) but very personally as angels and saints, with God himself and Jesus (Hebrews 12:22–24).
So, then, back to the honor of the unshamable God. God will be honored by those who desire him, take him at his word, welcome his promises, embrace his Son, and confess themselves to be strangers on this present earth, waiting for the heavenly city to come. God is honored by his people who desire something better — a better people, a better city than human hands and constitutions can build.
Not only is that desire in his people an expression of their faith, but that desire profoundly honors their God. He is not honored by indifference to him and his promises. The King is not honored by apathy in his subjects. He is honored by souls that seek him, desire him, welcome him, embrace him. If I might be so daring as to paraphrase the heart of God toward his people in Hebrews 11:16, he says,
I am honored to be your God because you desire me, not the world apart from me, with its empty promises. You seek a fatherland, a home, with me, not on earth in this age. You see me and my city from afar, and you are not uninterested or unimpressed. You greet it, welcome it, embrace it. You want me, and that honors me. You enjoy me, and that glorifies me. No, I am not ashamed to be your God; I am honored by such hopes and dreams. And you will not be disappointed — because I have prepared for you something far better.
Oh how often, as C.S. Lewis observes, does our God find our desires not too strong but too weak. He is honored both by our desiring him and by his fulfilling and exceeding those desires. That’s the point of the last part of verse 16: “He has prepared for them a city.”
Our strong desires, directed Godward, will not go unfulfilled in the end. He will make good, and more, on all our holy hopes and dreams. The living God will not let down the ambitious desires of his people. He will be greatly honored to show us how he himself, through his Son, fulfills all we have greatly desired.
Desiring God