Hebrews 11 FAITH

Hebrews 11 FAITH

Part 1 of 5

Hebrews 11:1 “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” (KJV 1900)
1Now faith is the substance (ὑπόστασις hupóstasis <Strong’s:G5287>) of things hoped for, the evidence (ἔλεγχος élegchos ,Strong’s:G1650>) of things not seen.

This sentence is packed full of central theological concepts. I think we’re going to have some fun with this.

Here are a few insights from Greek resources to get us started.

Spiros Zodhiates writes in The complete word study dictionary: New Testament, 2000, that hupostasis (substance) means “Substance, what really exists under any appearance, reality, essential nature.” He goes on to note that in Heb. 1:3 it is rendered, “the express image” or exact expression of God’s “essence or being”, i.e., of God Himself).”

Here is Hebrews 1:3 “Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person (hupostasis), and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high” (KJV 1900).

Here we see that Jesus is the perfect expression, literally the character, of the divine essence, His person, His hupostasis, or substance.

One of the most comprehensive and deepest Greek resources available is the “Theological Dictionary of the New Testament” (TDNT 1964 Helmut Köster)

In Volume 8 of this huge work, hupostasis gets about two pages. Most pertinent to our discussion, TDNT says, “hupostasis is the “underlying reality behind something.” “that which endures,” The word “denotes the actuality of the transcendent reality. Christ is the wholly valid revelation of this transcendent reality of God.”

This verse can rightly be translated, “Now faith is the reality of what is hoped for, the proof of what is not seen.” (CSV) The Christian Standard version of the Bible does exactly that.

Far from being simply a subjective idea that what we believe is true, faith is the knowledge of the actuality of it. It is the acknowledgement of that which is intrinsically true. It is the acknowledgement of God. Proverbs 3:6 discusses this idea in saying, “In all thy ways acknowledge him, And he shall direct thy paths.” (KJV 1900)

In Romans 1:21 Holy Spirit shows us what the opposite of faith is. Through the Apostle Paul He says, “…when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.” (KJV 1900) These vain imaginations are the elevation of human thinking. It is the futility of claiming as actual that which is impermanent. It is denial of what is intrinsically true. It is rejection of God.

Hebrews 11:2–3 “For by it the elders obtained a good report. Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.” (KJV 1900)

Verse 1 also spoke of what is not seen. Remember, it said, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”

This word “evidence” (ἔλεγχος élegchos ,Strong’s:G1650>) means, “to convict, conviction. Metonymically, (that means it is a substitute for something else, like “suit” might substitute for “business executive”, or “the track” for “horse race”) this word translated “evidence” substitutes for “certain persuasion.” –Spiros Zodhiates, The complete word study dictionary: New Testament, 2000.

When it comes to the unseen, we do not have physical evidence that we can handle. The certainly we have comes from the clear intangible evidence of the truth of God.

However, as Paul points out in Romans 1:19–20, we are not speaking of blind or unthinking faith. On the contrary, he writes, “Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse” (KJV 1900)

Here we are told that the invisible things are clearly seen—they are made visible—by observing the visible things around us. The sum of the things we see leads us to the inescapable conclusion that God exists and that He is loving, benevolent, and all powerful. We are not blindly following a smooth-talking teacher named Jesus. Rather, we are acknowledging that we do not know all there is to know and instead have decided to trust in the One to whom all we do know points us.

The remainder of this chapter provides us with example after example of people who demonstrated faith.

Let’s look at Hebrews 11:5–6 “By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and was not found, because God had translated him: for before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God. But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.” (KJV 1900)

One of the most important ideas for us to grasp and hold onto is this. Without faith it is impossible to please God. Knowing this does at least two important things for us.

First, with this in mind we can take for granted that everyone mentioned here pleased God, not because of their exemplary conduct, but rather because they believed Him. Their faith was expressed in their conduct for sure, but their conduct was the result of their faith. It was not the reason God was pleased with them.

Second, when we are tempted, to think that Father is more pleased with us when we display godly conduct, remembering that it is faith that pleases Him instantly frees us from that temptation.

What I mean is that the realization that it is faith, trusting Him, that pleases Father, frees us from the treadmill of self-effort and mask-wearing. It allows us to be our authentic selves and set our minds on things above rather than looking at ourselves to see if we are behaving rightly or not.

Like those in this list of faithful people, our conduct is the result of our faith. It is an expression of our faith. In Galatians 5:6 we read that “in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision; but faith which worketh by love. (KJV 1900)

Faith is evidenced by love, it is worked out by love. But even this is no litmus test of faith. Instead, our role is that of dependence. Because of the Life of Christ in us, the fruit of love is naturally expressed by us. This is the way of The Kingdom as we will see.

Hebrews 11:7–8 “By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house; by the which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith. By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went.” (KJV 1900)

I love these two accounts because they help us when we sense that Holy Spirit is prompting us, but we are uncertain what He may be up to or His leading appears to be leading in a completely unexpected direction. Noah had not yet seen the flood—or any rain at all for that matter—and Abraham was told to go to a place God promised to show him later.

If they had not believed God, they would never have taken these actions. We read that Noah was “moved with fear.” We must be careful not to read into this that Noah did what he did out of fear of what terrible things God might do to him. The Hebrew here is clear. This fear is a reverential respect. This is important to our discussion because it is this fear, the reverential respect, that demonstrates that it was Noah’s trust in God that God found pleasing.

God asked these two men essentially to jump off a cliff. He told one that something would occur that had never occurred in the history of the world to that point. The other He told that only after he left his home would he discover his destination. Only their faith in God could result in the actions they undertook.

Hebrews 11:13–16 says, “These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country. And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned. But now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city. (KJV 1900)

The promise Father made to Abraham and Sarah was that nations and kings would come from them and that humanity would be blessed by their progeny—meaning Jesus Christ. They never saw this come to fruition.

Indeed, it was many centuries before Jesus came. Nevertheless, God was faithful to His promise. Christ did come, and though it took place centuries after their physical deaths, by the work Jesus completed at the cross, Noah, Abraham, Sarah, and all the rest were saved.

It is no different for us today. Though none of us were born for many centuries after the Lord accomplished our redemption on the cross, we gained the benefits the moment we, like those of old, trusted Him as our righteousness.

In saying that the “better country” to which these people looked forward was heavenly, scripture points out to us the unseen realm where intrinsic truth dwells. The permanence of this Kingdom and the fact of its existence is the very thing we accept by faith. It is the very thing of which we are firmly convinced because of the strong evidence we find in the physical realm. More even than that, we declare it by our actions to be true.

That we are so firmly convinced of the intrinsic truth of God that our actions declare it is perhaps nowhere more clearly modeled for us than in the account of Rahab in Hebrews 11:31 “By faith the harlot Rahab perished not with them that believed not, when she had received the spies with peace.” (KJV 1900)

Rahab acted on what she believed to be true of the God of the Hebrews. Her faith that He was and that He was a rewarder of those who trusted Him was so strong that she hid His people from her own people.

Joshua 2:3–6 relates a pertinent part of the story. “And the king of Jericho sent unto Rahab, saying, Bring forth the men that are come to thee, which are entered into thine house: for they be come to search out all the country. And the woman took the two men, and hid them, and said thus, There came men unto me, but I wist not whence they were: And it came to pass about the time of shutting of the gate, when it was dark, that the men went out: whither the men went I wot not: pursue after them quickly; for ye shall overtake them. But she had brought them up to the roof of the house, and hid them with the stalks of flax, which she had laid in order upon the roof.” (KJV 1900)

Scripture relates these details so that we cannot imagine that her acceptance by God is related to her actions. In fact, her faith was demonstrated in part through the commission of the sin of lying. In relating her lie, scripture is not teaching a doctrine that sinful behavior is acceptable as long as it is an expression of faith. This isn’t an example of “the end justifies the means.” Rather, it is demonstrating in the clearest possible terms that it is not our behavior that results in righteousness and acceptance by God.

In the verses that follow this account we read that Rahab had heard about the things God had done for the Hebrew people and that the truth of these accounts was clear to her. That is the faith that is the substance or reality of the intrinsic truth that God is who He says He is and does what He says He will do.

The Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (TDNT) points out that this is the message of Hebrews 11. I’ll paraphrase because the actual text is littered with Greek phrases and rather arcane references.

The word “evidence” in Hebrews 11:1 does not mean subjective lack of doubt and it has nothing to do with mere conviction—what we might call blind faith. Rather it has the sense of “demonstration” as we’ve seen in the brief examples above and which is the focus of each of the examples in Hebrews 11. This demonstration is the proof of things not seen. It is proof of the heavenly realm in which is the only intrinsic truth.

With incomparable boldness Hebrews 11:1 identifies faith with this transcendent reality: Faith is the reality of what is hoped for in exactly the sense in which Jesus is called the express image or exact representation of the reality of the transcendent God in Hebrews 1:3.

The presence of the divine reality is found in the one case in the obedience of a suffering and dying man and in the other in the faith of the community. But this is the point of Hebrews. Only the work of Jesus and only participation in this work (faith) are not subject to the corruptibility of the earthly.

It is plain, then, that in Hebrews hupostasis (the substance) indicates the “reality” of God which stands contrasted with the corruptible, and temporary character of the world and that paradoxically this reality is present in Jesus and is the possession of the community as faith. –Paraphrased from Helmut Köster, Theological dictionary of the New Testament, 1964–, 8, 585–588.

Hebrews 11 ends with verses 39 and 40 “And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise: God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect.” (KJV 1900)

All these people lived and died before the resurrection of Jesus Christ. They believed the reality of God and the eternal realm, but they did not receive the salvation God promised while they lived on earth. The plan of God that His Son Jesus Christ would come in the flesh had, in our temporal existence, not yet occurred. In His wisdom, Father sent Jesus at just the right time. He came to establish a better covenant based on better promises—unilateral promises between God and God.

Those who lived before the cross could not be made perfect without us. That means that they could not be saved in some way different from the way we are saved. Then as now, it is by grace we are saved, through faith.

The work of Jesus spans and is effectual for all who believe across all of time. It is an eternal work. It is accomplished in time from our perspective, but outside the limits of time from the eternal perspective.

Hebrews 11:1 “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” (KJV 1900)

Hebrews 11:6 “But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.” (KJV 1900)

As we have seen, the eternal is the realm of intrinsic truth and it is a fact in the most profound way.

Jesus said that He is the way, the truth, and the life.
He is the way.
He is intrinsically true.

When we align ourselves with that which is intrinsically true, when we put our faith in Him, the result is Life.