Kent Hughes begins his sermon on the beginning of Hebrews 11 with this story:
AS THE STORY GOES, a man despairing of life had climbed the railing of the Brooklyn Bridge and was about to leap into the river when a policeman caught him by the collar and pulled him back. The would-be suicide protested, “You don’t understand how miserable I am and how hopeless my life is. Please let me jump.”
The kindhearted officer reasoned with him and said, “I’ll make this proposition to you. Take five minutes and give your reasons why life is hopeless and not worth living, and then I’ll take five minutes and give my reasons why I think life is worth living, both for you and for me. If at the end of ten minutes you still feel like jumping from the bridge, I won’t stop you.”
The man took his five minutes, and the officer took his five minutes. Then they stood up, joined hands, and jumped off the bridge!
Gallows humor to be sure, but it is painfully parabolic of today’s culture, which has abandoned its Christian roots for a vacuous secularism. Indeed, if one factors God out of life’s equation and adopts the view that we are little more than cosmic accidents, life, with its inevitable hardships and suffering, becomes hard to defend. In fact, suicide has been considered more intellectually consistent, even stylish, by some existential intellectuals in the last few decades.
But for the Christian there is substantial reason for hope in this life and the life to come because of the promises of God’s Word. In fact, 1 Peter 1:3 tells that we have been “born again to a living hope.” Now, the degree of our experience of hope is proportionate to the degree of our faith. The more solid and certain our faith, the more profound our hope. A deeply intense faith spawns a deeply intense hope.
This was important to the writer of Hebrews because of the rising storm of persecution that was about to fall on the church. He knew that the key to survival was a solid faith and a resultant hope. That is why in 10:38 he quoted Habakkuk 2:4, “But my righteous one shall live by faith.” There is a spiritual axiom implicit here: faith produces hope, and hope produces perseverance . Without faith one will inevitably shrink back.
Having introduced faith and endurance in 10:39, the writer proceeded to develop these concepts further. He celebrates the character of faith in chapter 11 and then summons the readers to endurance in 12:1-13. The first of these sections is exposition, and the second is exhortation.
“The characteristic vocabulary of this section relates to the vital issue of enduring disciplinary sufferings. Anticipating the subsequent development in 12:1-13, the writer underscored the community’s need for hypomone, ‘endurance,’ in 10:36. That note is resumed in 12:1, when the commitment required of the Christian life is reviewed under the metaphor of an athletic contest, and the key to victory is found in ‘endurance.'” (William Lane, Hebrews 9—13, p. 313).
It may help to see what might be called the “bookends” of Hebrews 11. Just a few verses earlier in Hebrews 10:36 our author told them that they had “need of endurance” (Heb. 10:36). They needed to persevere and endure and press into the promises of God. And then immediately following Hebrews 11, in Hebrews 12:1, he exhorts them to “run with endurance the race that is set before” them. So here we find Hebrews 11, tucked in between this call for endurance in chapter ten and then again in chapter twelve. My point is simply that the examples of faith that we find in Hebrews 11 are all designed to encourage these first-century professing Christians to hold on tightly to Christ, to persevere in their confidence in him, to endure by clinging to him and all the blessings that God has given us in his Son.
You need to recognize what a brilliant theological and spiritual strategy this is. The men and women to whom Hebrews is written were contemplating going back to the religious ways of people like Abel and Enoch and Noah and Abraham and Moses and Joshua and Gideon and David (the very people of whom Hebrews 11 speaks). So what does our author do? He describes these Old Testament saints as people who lived in daily confidence and faith in the promise of God that something better was coming. That is to say, these great men and women of old lived in confident faith and expectation of the coming of the Savior from whom these first-century believers were tempted to walk away! (These last two paragraphs are from Sam Storms).
With the important connection between faith and hope now understood, the preacher launches into an eloquent song of faith that occupies the whole of chapter 11, beginning with a brief description of faith in verses 1–3 that is followed by a lyrical catalog of grand examples in verses 4–40. As we take up verses 1–3 and the theme of what “faith is,” we must keep in mind that this is not an exhaustive definition, but rather a description of a faith that perseveres. In fact, there is a better definition of faith in Romans 4:21, where Paul says, “fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised.” That is what genuine, biblical faith is, being fully convinced that God is able to do what He has promised us.
Hebrews 11 is a favorite chapter of many. It has been called “The Saints’ Hall of Fame,” “The Heroes of Faith,” “The Honor Roll of the OT Saints,” “The Westminster Abbey of Scripture,” and “The Faith Chapter” (John MacArthur Jr., The MacArthur NT Commentary: Hebrews, 285)
Here in Hebrews 11 will consider faith under three headings: Faith’s Character , v. 1; Faith’s Activism , v. 2; and Faith’s Understanding , v. 3.
1 Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. 2 For by it the people of old received their commendation. 3 By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.
George Guthrie notes: “Over the past two centuries those of us in the Western world have embraced a very non-biblical view of faith as ‘a leap in the dark.’ Largely this view comes from a philosophical orientation known as existentialism. One version of that philosophy goes something like this: in the modern world we know that miracles don’t happen, so basic beliefs of Christianity—like a man rising from the dead—can’t be true. So to continue to embrace Christianity, we must turn our backs on the facts and take a leap of faith.’”
This approach to faith has even been memorialized in movies like Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Remember near the end of the movie, when Indy had come to vast chasm. He had to have “faith”—shut his eyes and step off into nothing. Of course, he stepped onto an invisible bridge, and everything was OK! That’s Hollywood’s version of faith. A blind leap. That is not biblical faith. One place we can look for the biblical alternative is Hebrews 11” (https://georgehguthrie.com/new-blog/biblical-faith)
So, it is vitally important for us today, as well as these Hebrews, to understand the true nature of faith. It is not a “leap in the dark,” regardless of the evidence. It is not a faith in faith. It is belief in God’s promises.
Faith is not a feeling, like the line from Oklahoma:
O what a beautiful morning,
O what a beautiful day.
I’ve got a wonderful feeling,
Everything’s going my way!
It is not optimism or bootstrap positive thinking either. It is not a hunch. It is not sentimentality. The cynical Ambrose Bierce wrongly described faith in his Devil’s Dictionary as “belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge of things without parallel.”
Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.
True faith is neither brainless nor a sentimental feeling. It is a solid conviction resting on God’s words that makes the future present and the invisible seen… The great Bishop Westcott says of verse 1, “The general scope of the statement is to indicate that the future and the unseen can be made real by faith.”
Faith is not irrational, rather it is supra-rational. It is based on a supernatural power to fulfill promises which God asks us to trust. These are rational because we can understand them and because God has been faithful in the past.
In the Greek text the verb “is” (estin) is the first word. Faith is a present and continuing reality. . . . This meaning is that there are realities for which we have no material evidence though they are not the less real for that. (Frank E. Gæbelein, Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Vol. 12, 113)
The Greek noun here is pistis, which can be translated as “faith,” “trust” or “belief” and sometimes “faithful,” depending upon the context.
Our author describes faith in two ways in verse 1. First, “faith is the substance of things hoped for.”
“Faith is the substance” (hupostasis). The Greek word here gives the sense of something foundational, basic, a concrete reality upon which other things are built. Stasis, the root of the word, means the place, setting, a standing pillar, that upon which other stones are placed. The prefix hupo means “under” or “below.” Together the result signifies something solidly foundational, concrete in reality, something assured.
Thus, faith as defined by our exhorter is not an imaginary product of the mind fabricated out of its own philosophical needs or rationalistic dreams, but that which is firm, solid, of real existence. Faith is the solid certainty of that for which we hope, based upon reality and solid existence. (Louis H. Evans, Jr., The Communicator’s Commentary: Hebrews, 196)
“To the writer to the Hebrews faith is a hope that is absolutely certain that what it believes is true, and that what it expects will come. It is not the hope which looks forward with wistful longing; it is the hope which looks forward with utter certainty. It is not the hope which takes refuge in a perhaps; it is the hope which is founded on a conviction” (William Barclay, pp. 144-45).
This is just another way of talking about the “already” and “not yet” dimensions of Christian experience. There is much that is “not yet” ours. We await it. It will come when Christ returns. But there is also a part of that future inheritance that is “already” ours, and faith is what makes it possible for us to experience and enjoy today what will come in fullness only when Christ returns.
There is a sense in which that future promise is already and substantially here when we trust God’s word. Faith gives to our future inheritance a present reality and power, as if it is already possessed. No one has expressed this with greater clarity than John Piper:
“In other words, faith grasps – lays hold of – God’s preciousness so firmly that in the faith itself there is the substance of the goodness and the sweetness promised. Faith doesn’t create what we hope for – that would be a mere mind game. Faith is a spiritual apprehending or perceiving or tasting or sensing of the beauty and sweetness and preciousness and goodness of what God promises – especially his own fellowship, and the enjoyment of his own presence.
Faith does not just feel confident that this is coming some day. Faith has spiritually laid hold of and perceived and tasted that it is real. And this means that faith has the substance or the nature of what is hoped for in it. Faith’s enjoyment of the promise is a kind of substantial down payment of the reality coming” (sermon, What Faith Knows and Hopes For, June 1, 1997; www.desiringgod.org).
Faith is so assured of the future (because of God’s promises) so that they already seem to have been fulfilled in the present.
Is this the kind of faith you have?
Faith grabs hold of what is hoped for, as something real and substantial. It believes that God’s promises are sure.
If you have the substance (the thing you hoped for) or you could see it, you wouldn’t need faith. It is because you cannot see it or you don’t have it yet that you need faith. You have to trust that God has the power to be faithful to keep His promises to you.
As William Lane explains:
Faith celebrates now the reality of the future blessings which make up the objective content of Christian hope. Faith gives to the objects of hope the force of present realities, and it enables the person of faith to enjoy the full certainty that in the future these realities will be experienced (William L. Lane, Hebrews: A Call to Commitment (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1988), p. 149).
The second half of verse 1 joins faith’s future certitude to the parallel visual certitude that comes through faith, because faith means having “the conviction of things not seen.”
Our faith is the organ by which we are enabled to see the invisible order—and to see it with certainty, just as our eyes behold the physical world around us. What do we see? As we have mentioned, we see the future because it is made present to us through faith. But we also see more—namely, the invisible spiritual kingdom around us.
Sometimes God opens our physical eyes to see these spiritual realities.
Genesis 28 records how Jacob, on that miserable night he fled from Esau into the wilderness, forlorn and alone, laid his weary head on a rock to sleep, and “he dreamed, and behold, there was a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven. And behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it!” (Genesis 28:12). In a flash he saw what had been around him all the time—angelic commerce between Heaven and earth on his behalf! The account records, “Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, ‘Surely the LORD is in this place, and I did not know it.’ And he was afraid and said, ‘How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven’” (Genesis 28:16, 17). Jacob saw the unseen spiritual order, and that is what we see by faith.
And in 2 Kings 6 the king of Syria sends his army against Israel. He surrounded the city and Elisha’s servant asked, “Alas, my master, what shall we do?” Elisha said, “”Do not be afraid, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them.”
He could see something that his servant could not yet see. So Elisha prayed and said, “O LORD, please open his eyes that he may see.” So the LORD opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw, and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha (2 Kings 6:14-17).
But most of the time we must “walk by faith” rather than by sight (2 Cor. 5:7).
Faith brings a dynamic dual certitude to everyday life. First, there is future certitude as that which is to come becomes present to us. Second, there is a visual certitude as we see the invisible.
In summary then faith is a kind of spiritual tasting of what God has promised so that we feel a deep, substantial assurance of things hoped for; and faith is a kind of spiritual seeing of the invisible fingerprints of God in the things he has made. By the one we know God’s power and wisdom to make us, and by the other we know his goodness and grace to save us.
So I say with Psalm 34:8, “O taste and see that the LORD is good; How blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him!”
Our author is encouraging the Hebrews and us to exercise a faith that makes the future a present reality and the invisible visible to our spiritual eyes. This will result in an action-oriented, enduring faith, one that is strong and robust.
Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego had that kind of faith. They will be referred to in verse 34 of this chapter. They refused to bow down to Nebuchadnezzar’s idol, which caused the offended king to threaten to throw them into the blazing furnace. Their response shows that by faith, they were making real in their present crisis the future promises of God regarding eternal life. By faith they saw the unseen God as more real than the enraged king standing in front of them, threatening to roast them alive. Listen to how faith oozes out of verses 16-18. They say, “”O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. If this be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.”
And what happened? Not only did they survive, but Christ appeared with them in the fiery furnace. Their faith allowed them to enjoy that special experience of His presence with them.
Grace Still Amazes 