“Now faith is the assurance of
things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen”
(Hebrews 1:1 NASB).
The Greek word for “faith”
that is used in Hebrews 1:1 is pistis
(Strong’s 4102). It is derived from the Greek word peithō (Strong’s 3982). Peithō
is a primary verb that means “to convince (by argument or analogy, or to rely
by inward certainty).
Pistis,
used in Hebrews 1:1 means “persuasion, i.e. credence; moral conviction (of
religious truth, especially reliance upon Christ for salvation).
The Greek for “hoped for”
is elpizō (Strong’s 1679). It is
derived from the primary word elpis
(Strong’s 1680). Elpis means “to
anticipate, usually with pleasure; expectation or confidence. In other words,
it is a noun meaning “confident expectation of good.” Elpizō means “to hope, expect with desire.”
In the construction of
Hebrews 1:1, it carries the idea of hoping in someone (Jesus), i.e. to trust
in, or confide in.
The Greek word for “conviction”
is elegchō (Strong’s 1650). It is
also a noun that means “certain persuasion.”
As we begin our
exposition of Hebrews 11, we need to see why it's here and what it has to do
with your life. Go back with me several weeks and six verses to Hebrews 10:34.
You may remember that some Christians were imprisoned and the others made the
hard decision to identify with them and risk their property and their lives.
Verse 34 tells what happened. "You showed sympathy to the prisoners, and
accepted joyfully the seizure of your property, knowing that you have for
yourselves a better possession and an abiding one."[1]
This is the kind of
life the whole book of Hebrews is aiming to produce - a life that looks at the
high price of love (the seizure of our property, perhaps, or the some other
kind of abuse or calamity, Hebrews 13:3-6,13), and then accepts that
possibility joyfully and does what love demands, no matter what. That's the
life Hebrews is aiming at. All the glorious truth we have seen about Christ -
· giving himself
once for all as a final sacrifice for our sins (9:14)
· perfecting us for
all time by a single offering (10:14)
· giving us a clean
conscience by his own blood (9:14; 10:22)
· being our
sympathetic high priest before God (4:14-16)
· interceding for us
day after day in heaven (7:25)
· putting his laws
in our minds and writing them on our hearts,
· being our God
(8:10)
· remembering our
sins no more (8:12)
· promising never to
leave us or forsake us (13:5-6)
So chapter 11 begins
with a definition of faith that links it with hope and then goes on to show how
this hope gave power for all kinds of radical obedience. Let's read the text again:
"Now faith is the
assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. 2 For by it
the men of old gained approval. 3 By faith we understand that the worlds were
prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things
which are visible."
So the first
important thing to see here is that the power to sacrifice and love and
joyfully accept the seizure of your property, which we saw in 10:34, is called
"faith." Faith is the assurance of things hoped for - that is, faith
is the confidence that "you have a better possession and an abiding
one." There's the link between the life of sacrificial love in 10:34 and
the hall of fame in chapter 11. Chapter 11 is a catalogue of people who
illustrate that this kind of faith - the assurance of things hoped for - really
makes a difference in life.
Assurance and Conviction
So the first task we
have in this new chapter is to understand more exactly what faith is. That's
what verse 1 gives us - a twofold definition of faith. Let's look at both
parts, one at a time: "Now faith is (1) the assurance of things hoped for,
(2) the conviction of things not seen."
There is more here
than meets the eye at first. The word for "assurance" in the first
definition ("the assurance of things hoped for") and the word for
"conviction" in the second definition ("the conviction of things
not seen"), are unusual words and very difficult to translate into
English. You may remember the old King James Version: "Now faith is the
substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." These
words "substance" and "evidence" are, in fact, very serious
and important translations. What is the reality behind these two words and
these two definitions of faith?
This is not merely
academic. Just ask yourself this question: do you have faith? How do you know
you have faith? What is faith, so that you can know you have it? What hangs on
whether you have faith or not? You can see that this question is immensely
practical and relevant to your life. "Conviction" or
"Evidence"?
Let's start with the
second definition first: "Faith is the conviction or (the evidence) of
things not seen." The word for "conviction" or
"evidence" is not used anywhere else in the New Testament. Outside
the New Testament, its normal use is "proof" or "argument"
or "evidence" - something objective - about the world rather than
subjective about how we feel about the world.
But what about the
meaning here in verse 1? Most translators don't use the old word,
"proof" or "evidence," because it doesn't seem to make
sense. How can faith be evidence or proof? Faith needs evidence, doesn't it?
But let's look at the illustration of this definition of faith in verse 3.
Verse 3 is directly related to this definition of faith as "the evidence
of things not seen." It says, "By faith we understand that the worlds
were prepared by the Word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things
which are visible."
Do you see the
connection? Verse 1 says "faith is the evidence of things not seen,"
and verse 3 says that faith understands that the world - what is seen - was
made out of what is not seen - the Word of God. So verse 3 is a specific
illustration of the definition of faith in verse 1b.
Here's the question:
How do we know that God made the world out of nothing that is seen? Not only
were we not there when it happened, but, even if we had been there, we would
not have been able to see the act of creation, because you can't see the Word
of God. So how can we know or "understand" that the worlds were made
by the word of God? How can we know that "what is seen was made out of things
invisible" - namely the Word of God?
Verse 3 answers,
"by faith." "By faith we understand that the worlds were
prepared by the word of God." Now this starts to sound a little more like
the old King James translation of verse 1 might make sense after all. If
"faith is the evidence of things not seen," then it might make sense
to say, "By faith (by evidence) we understand that the worlds were
prepared by the Word of God." But if we take the newer translation
("faith is the conviction of things unseen") and say, "By
conviction we understand that the worlds were prepared by the Word of
God," then it just sounds like we are reasoning in a circle: I have the
conviction that God created the world, therefore I understand that he did
create the world. And I understand that he created the world, therefore I have
the conviction that he created the world.”
The Substance of Things Hoped For
Now that leaves us
just a few minutes to focus on the other part of the definition of faith in
verse 1: "Now faith is the assurance - or the substance - of things hoped
for." It may be that all this means is that faith is a deep confidence
that the promises of God will come true so that we bank on them. That would be
enough to free us from the fears and greed and worldliness that block the flow
of radical, risk-taking, sacrificial love. If we have a strong conviction that
God will care for us and bring us to glory and fulfill all his promises to us
forever, then we will be free from self-indulgence and free for serving others.
But I think it means
more - or maybe this is just a way of filling up this meaning with all that's
really here. The word "assurance" here can mean "nature" or
"substance" or "reality" or "essence" in other
places, for example, Hebrews 1:3 ("exact representation of God's
nature"). If that is what is meant here, then we should think like this.
What could the
"substance" or "nature" of things hoped for mean? I think
it could mean that faith apprehends the goodness and the sweetness of what God
promises so clearly that this goodness and sweetness are substantially present
in faith. 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 someday. 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.
Taste and See
This is what happens
when the Gospel is preached. The Word of God is spoken - broken like sweet
bread and poured out like refreshing water - and the spiritual taste of your
heart is awakened, and you know that there is more here than the mere opinion
of a man. Just like it says in Hebrews 10:34, you "know that you have a
better possession and an abiding one."
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!”
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