<p>11:11 <i>By faith even Sarah herself received power to conceive seed when she was past age, since she counted Him faithful who had made the promise- </i>The seed of Abraham was only realized by faith, despite so many reasons to disbelieve. If faith were based upon rational evidence then she could never have come to such faith.</p><p>This personal nature of the promises resulted in a mutuality between God and the patriarchs, as it can between Him and all Abraham's seed. God&rsquo;s present judgment of us is actually related to how we &lsquo;judge&rsquo; God to be. There&rsquo;s a mutuality between God and man in this business of present judgment. This theme is played on throughout Hebrews 11. Sarah &ldquo;judged&rdquo; God as faithful, and He &lsquo;judged&rsquo; her as faithful (Heb. 11:11); she counted Him as trustworthy and He counted righteousness to her. As Abraham &ldquo;was offering up Isaac&rdquo; (RV), with the knife raised, he was &ldquo;accounting&rdquo; God to be capable of performing a resurrection, just as Moses quit the riches of Egypt, &ldquo;accounting the reproach of Christ greater than the treasures of Egypt&rdquo; (Heb. 11:17,19,26 RV). And yet God &lsquo;accounts&rsquo; us to be faithful, imputing righteousness to us. Through these acts and attitudes of faith, &ldquo;these&hellip; had witness borne to them through their faith&rdquo; (Heb. 11:39 RV). It was as if their lives were lived in the courtroom, with their actions a constant presentation of evidence to the judge of all the earth. Our judgment of God to be faithful thus becomes His judgment of us to be faithful.</p><p>&quot;Even Sarah herself&quot; is clearly making a point, holding up a flashing light over this particular example. There is every reason to think, from the Genesis record, that Sarah not only lacked faith in the promises, but also had a bitter, unspiritual mind. The account alludes back to Eve's beguiling of Adam when it records how &quot;Abram hearkened to the voice of Sarai&quot; (Gen. 16:2) in acquiescing to her plan to give her a seed through Abram marrying his slave girl. The whole thing between Sarah and Abraham seems wrong on at least two counts: firstly it reflects a lack of faith in the promise; and secondly it flouts God's ideal standards of marriage. Sarai seems to have recognized the error when she bitterly comments to Abram: &quot;My wrong be upon thee&quot; (16:5). Her comment that &quot;the Lord hath restrained me from bearing&quot; (16:2) would suggest that she thought she hadn't been chosen to bear the promised seed. Yet because of her faith, says Heb. 11:11, she received strength to bear that seed.&nbsp; Hagar was so persecuted by Sarah that she &quot;fled from her face&quot; (16:6). God's attitude to Hagar seems to reflect a certain amount of sympathy for the harsh way in which Sarah had dealt with her. These years of bitterness and lack of faith came to the surface when Sarah overheard the Angel assuring Abraham that Sarah really would have a son. She mockingly laughed at the promise, deep within herself (18:15). Yet according to Heb. 11:11, she rallied her faith and believed. But as soon as Isaac was born, her bitterness flew to the surface again when she was Ishmael mocking. In what can only be described as unrestrained anger, she ordered Hagar and Ishmael out into the scorching desert, to a certain death (humanly speaking). Again, one can sense the sympathy of God for Hagar at this time. And so wedged in between incidents which belied a deep bitterness, lack of faith and pride (after Isaac was born), the Spirit in Heb. 11:11 discerns her faith; on account of which, Heb. 11:12 implies (&quot;therefore&quot;), the whole purpose of God in Christ could go forward. See on Gal. 4:30.</p><p>Because of Sarah&rsquo;s faith, &ldquo;therefore sprang there...so many as the stars of the sky in multitude&rdquo; (:11,12). Those promises to Abraham had their fulfilment, but conditional on Abraham and Sarah&rsquo;s faith. Gen. 18:18-20 says that the fulfilment of the promises was conditional on Abraham teaching his children / seed the ways of God. Those promises / prophesies were &ldquo;sure&rdquo; in the sense that God&rsquo;s side of it was. Rom. 4:18 likewise comments that Abraham became&nbsp; &ldquo;the father of many nations&rdquo; precisely because he <i>believed</i> in this hope. Yet the promise / prophecy that he would be a father of many nations could sound as if it would have happened anyway, whatever. But it was actually conditional upon Abraham&rsquo;s faith. And he is our great example exactly because he had the possibility and option of <i>not</i> believing in the hope he had been offered. The promises to Abraham form the new covenant, of which Paul has had so much to say in Hebrews. And yet the realization of it depends upon faith, just as it had earlier depended upon the faith of Abraham and Sarah, no matter how fragile that faith was.</p><p>&quot;Faith&quot; in Hebrews 11 often refers to faith in Christ, the seed of Abraham. Perhaps we are to understand Sarah's faith that conception would occur as motivated by her faith that the promises of the great seed would have to come true through her as the legitimate wife of Abraham. So it was by her shadowy faith in Christ as the future seed that she sound the faith to believe that her old body could bear a child.</p>