Every physical object you see around you is transient. Paul says, “We look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen for the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal” (2Cor.4.18). Faith, then, is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen-things invisible in the present age but which we will see in the age to come. We hope for what we don’t see, and wait for it “with perseverance”. If he had been with us all along, we wouldn’t need to hope for his arrival. Over the past few days, we were hoping to meet up with a dear friend, but we didn’t get to see him until today. Hope, by definition, has to do with the things we don’t see. This verse repeatedly speaks of seeing, stressing that we hope for the things we don’t see, not the things we already see at the present time. But we don’t yet see the final outworking of God’s program of salvation in us and for us, with all its wondrous reality. By grace and through faith we enter the salvation God has provided for us in Christ. In the West where Christianity has become a cultural tag, being a Christian doesn’t always mean much in God’s sight, nor can it provide assurance of His approval.įor in hope we have been saved, but hope that is seen is not hope for why does one also hope for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, with perseverance we wait eagerly for it. So if they are not Christians, what are they? Heathens? Well, the blunt answer in many or even most cases, unfortunately but factually, may have to be “yes”. I was rewarded with the retort, “Of course I am! What do you think I am, a heathen?” The people there were all baptized as infants into the state church.
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Once when we were in Europe I asked someone whether she was a Christian. Put in another way, the important question is not whether we approve of the Christian faith, but whether God approves of us.
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It is a grave mistake to assume that God will accept us just because we accept Him. In the last chapter we saw that what counts is not whether we accept God but whether He accepts us. For by it the men of old gained (God’s) approval.” Hebrews 11.1‑2 says, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. What Faith Does: It Gains God’s Acceptance and Approval We are given an insight into what faith is, not by an analytical procedure, but by seeing what it does, or what happens, in the lives of those who have it.ġ. The use of examples is an effective way of explaining faith. The dynamic of faith, rooted in a relationship with the living God, finds expression in these illuminating examples. Many examples of great men and women of faith are given. Within the one chapter of Hebrews 11, the word “faith” occurs 23 times, and “believe” once (v.6). Nonetheless, God may be pleased to grant us some important insights that will have a profound impact upon our lives. I won’t be so presumptuous as to imagine that all the questions about faith could be answered within the scope of this chapter. We have some general ideas of what faith is, but we need something more precise.
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This may indicate that faith is not something amenable to academic analysis, but has to do with a living relationship with God, and cannot be accessed by a procedure of intellectual dissection. To this day, though faith has been discussed, analyzed and scrutinized in a plethora of doctoral dissertations, erudite articles and scholarly books, Christians are still not very much clearer about what it is. What the Reformation didn’t quite manage to do was to explain clearly what that faith is. The Protestant Reformation did us a great service by showing us the importance of faith and the principle of justification by faith.
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The rest of the New Testament also speaks of faith, but with the assumption that the reader already has faith, or knows what it is.įew people nowadays know what faith is. Hebrews 11 is one of the few places in the Bible that has anything close to a definition of faith. To arrive at the Scriptural meaning of faith, let us turn to Hebrews 11, which is the chapter par excellence on faith.