Hebrews 11:40

God having provided some better thing for us Lit., "Since God provided" (or "foresaw") "some better thing concerning us." In one sense Abraham, and therefore other patriarchs "rejoiced to see Christ's day," and yet they did but see it in such dim shadow that "many prophets and kings desired to see what ye see, and saw not, and hear the things which ye hear, and did not hear them" (Matthew 13:17), though all their earnest seekings and searchings tended in this direction (1 Peter 1:10-11).

that they without us should not be made perfect "Not unto themselves but unto us they did minister" (1 Peter 1:12). Since in their days "the fulness of the times" had not yet come (Ephesians 1:10) the saints could not be brought to their completion the end and consummation of their privileges apart from us. The "just" had not been, and could not be, "perfected" (Hebrews 12:23) until Christ had died (Hebrews 7:19; Hebrews 8:6). The implied thought is that if Christ had come in theirdays if the "close of the ages" had fallen in the times of the Patriarchs or Prophets the world would long ago have ended, and we should never have been born. Our presentprivileges are, as he has been proving all through the Epistle, incomparably better than those of the fathers. It was necessary in the economy of God that their "perfectionment" should be delayed until ours could be accomplished; in the future world we and they shall equally enjoy the benefits of Christ's redemption.