11:15,16
We see here the attitudes of both people of faith and of God Himself. We need to remember that we are in a relationship with God, we make an error whenever we view it purely from one direction, ie purely from our attitude towards God, or purely from His attitude towards us. The two interact with each other. The people of faith were looking forward to the place God was leading them towards. They were not looking back to the land they came from. Abraham never looked back to Ur of the Chaldees. Indeed, Israel was repeatedly warned against looking to return to Egypt or to receiving help from Egypt. In the context of the book of Hebrews, the writer is warning them against wanting to return to the Levitical system, it is over and has no part to play in the future. Instead they are to look forward to the heavenly country. Now this does not mean a pie-in-the-sky country. Rather it means a country built and designed by God.
So our attitude is to be one of looking forward. God’s attitude is that He is not ashamed of people of faith, for He is the One who has prepared the city for us, He is the One who has called us out of the world to follow Him. One of the factors that would have tempted the Hebrews to go back to the Levitical system would be awareness of their own sin. The writer is assuring them that God is not ashamed to be identified with them, so they should not be ashamed of themselves, and there was no reason whatsoever to hark back to the Levitical system.
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