GOD’S DEFINITION OF FAITH

Heb. 11:1

Morning Meditation 5/7/17

Verse 1 says, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”

This chapter could have easily begun in Chapter ten verse 35. Verses 35 to 39 in Chapter ten serve as a preface to this great chapter on faith. Some have called this chapter “God’s Hall of Fame.” Though the people are great, I do not believe it is intended to make them famous but simply to illustrate how the principle of faith worked in their lives. The first verse begins with the only definition of faith to be found in the Bible.

Hebrews 11:1

“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”

1. “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for” The word “faith” means, “confidence in what someone says.” Strong says, “a conviction of the truth of anything, a belief.” The word “substance” (hypostasis) is the foundation or substructure. This word has already been used in Hebrews 1:3 where Christ is said to be the express image of God's person (hypostasis). God is invisible, and though He exists in that state, He has substance. That substance is manifested in the person of Jesus Christ.

Bullinger comments: “We all hope for many things, but the question is, What foundation or ground have we for our hope? As to our hope for eternity, it all rests on the faithfulness of God's promise. If there is no God, or, if His promise be not true, then we have no foundation whatever for our hope. Everything, therefore, depends upon the fact that God has spoken, and that what He has said is true. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.

Andrew Murray says, “faith is the spiritual faculty of the soul which deals with the spiritual realities of the future and the unseen. Just as we have our senses, through which we hold communication with the physical universe, so faith is the spiritual sense or organ through which the soul comes into contact with and is affected by the spiritual world. Just as the sense of seeing or hearing is a dormant power till the objective reality, the light or the sound, strikes it, so faith in itself is a sense with no power beyond the possibility or capacity of receiving the impressions of the eternal. It is as an empty vessel which wants to be filled with its unseen contents. It is only when the eternal realities draw near and exercise their power that faith comes and is the substance of things hoped for, the foundation which they lay in the soul, the proof or conviction of things unseen, the convincing power with which they give evidence and proof of their own supernatural existence. Faith as a dormant faculty is the capacity for receiving this communication; faith as an active power is what it is in virtue of the overshadowing of the Invisible. The Invisible takes the initiative and wakens faith; faith receives the impression and seeks for ever fuller union with it.” (The Holiest of All, page 422).

Faith is a capacity to see the unseen. It is the substance of the unseen reality before it becomes seen reality. It is the God given faculty in man by which He manifests His reality in the physical world.. Jesus as a man is the express image of His person (hupostasis), the same word as “substance” in this verse. Jesus as a man is the “visible image of the invisible God” (Col. 1:15). God became seen in the person of Christ (John 14:9). Was God not real until Jesus came? Jesus’s coming did not make God more real than He is. Jesus came to be the substance of His person so that the Unseen became Seen with the capacity to communicate and fellowship with His creatures.

Through the redemption that is in Christ, God has given us as His children the capacity to fellowship with the unseen reality of His person and kingdom. Faith in His promises is the capacity to partake of the divine nature (2 Pet. 1:4). When faith comes into contact with and rests on His promises, He meets with that person so that the invisible God manifests His faithfulness to His promise to the extent that Peter said that we partake of the divine nature. This is where faith and the unseen God come in contact, and faith is the capacity for the manifestation of the unseen.

The words “of things hoped for” are things that God has told us about in His Word. We long for things as believers. We live in hope of heaven for instance. We have not seen heaven but believe God’s Word. We believe that He is faithful and His veracity can be counted on. Therefore, faith is the assurance, the substructure of those things we have not seen but have been promised. Hope is the joyful anticipation of a reality, the reality being the thing promised but not yet seen.

2. “The evidence of things not seen” The word “evidence” (elengchos) means “a proof, that by which anything is proven or tested; proof that conveys a satisfying conviction produced by demonstration.” We examine evidence. Physical eyesight examines evidence of visible things; faith is the organ which enables us to see the invisible. It is a divinely given conviction, a proof of things unseen. The proof God gives is His Word. Our faith in God’s Word is the evidence of the reality of His being and His faithfulness to what He promised. When one sees the evidence of something in the natural world, then there is an inner assurance, a conviction that a thing is true. It is based on the evidence seen. Faith in the unseen, based on the revelation of God’s Word, is the evidence that gives the believer the assurance of the truth of it. It is a faith that is UNREASONABLE to the natural man. But it is God given and therefore gives all the confidence in the unseen that physical evidence gives to sight. Millions of Christians since the days of the apostles have given their lives for what they believed to be truth based on a faith that is unreasonable to the natural man. They died martyr’s deaths based on faith that had enough substance to hold them to a burning stake, because they believed that death was better than the denial of the reality of the unseen, and that death was a door into the present of Jesus.

Lessons:

(1) Faith is the reality of the things unseen that God has promised. The Word of God tells us about unseen things. We believe what God has said and they become as real to us as if we saw them. Our believing doesn’t make them real, it is our God given capacity to see the reality of things unseen.

(2) Faith is to the believer what physical evidence is to sight. Faith is God given, therefore, it is evidence of the unseen.

(3) So, faith is the substance or reality of what we hope for, and it is the evidence, the assurance and all the proof we need that the promises of God represents substances that exist.

(1)Faith is our opportunity through its exercise to become the evidence of God’s existence and His willingness to fulfill promises He has made to His children.

Faith is the eye of the Spiritual man to see. There are those no doubt who need an eye examination. They have spiritual cataracts that need to be removed. Faith is the hand of the spiritual man to receive the things God has already given us (Eph. 1:3). Faith is the feet to walk continually in this life in service to Him. Many are crippled and need Dr. Grace to preform surgery to restore their damaged feet. Faith is mouth that tastes and eats Spiritual food for our growth to maturity. There are times when the taste of Spiritual food has been damaged by the intake of junk food. The appetite for Spiritual food can be restored, first, by confessing the sin of eating the wrong things, then, by getting back on the diet of a Spiritual man. Faith is the positive attitude of the mind toward the Word of God. There are those who are not serving the Lord because they began to question everything that the man of God taught them. They have become castaways and are now useless to themselves and to the Lord. I have good news. God can and does forgive and restore the castaways. Faith is the positive response to God’s offer of restoration.

May the Lord bless these words to our hearts.

In Christ

Bro. White