Hebrews 11:1 Commentary and Bible Study

In chapter 10:38 the inspired writer has quoted habakkuk 2:4 and he is applying these words to the ongoing Christian life. We are saved; we have found Christ; now, what is the rule of life for the believer? It is faith, trust in God at all times. Personal faith is the most precious faculty that we have. We look not at the things which are seen, but that the things which are not seen with the eye of faith. Faith is the great gift of God and the faculty which is vital to the ongoing life. It is your spiritual life and your perception, your spiritual radar, as it were. It is the key that the believer holds to gain access into all the places that are important to him. It is like your credit card, even your entire wallet: if your wallet is stolen, you have no access to all kinds of things. Your faith is your access to God and all the blessings you need to continue as Christian people in life’s journey. It is a remarkable faculty: it sees the things that are concealed to human sight, the things that are invisible and spiritual and eternal, all the things beyond human sight and sense which are revealed by God in his word. They only become real and can only be grasped by the faculty of faith. What then do we do with our faculty of faith? How do we exercise it to make it grow? Faith can fail. Does our faith fail day by day?So what is faith? Is it just grit, determination to think something is true, mind power? No, it is much more than that. That is the world’s definition of faith, faith in the unlikely, blind hope, faith in dubious promises that other people make to you which are not really trustworthy. The Roman Catholic church speaks of implicit faith. It is all things that you believe because the church tells you to believe them. They may seem quite far-fetched, but the church says this is part of the faith and you must believe it. That is how the Catholic Church survives with all its myths. The true Christian believes things, not because the church says so, but because the Bible says so, because God says so. Then there is fanatical faith. Sadly we know too much about that: people who think that if they murder others in the name of religion, they will go directly to paradise. But no, true faith rests on things that God has revealed. Now clearly, the word substance is not meant to be taken literally. Faith is not a substance. If you have faith in the fact that Christ will take you to heaven you do not have heaven yet. These are things that are hoped for; you have not got them yet, and yet faith makes them substantial to you, almost as if you had them already. Faith sees the things that God has revealed so clearly. You could equally translate this, ‘Now faith is a sure confidence of things hoped for’, which is exactly how William Tyndale translated it. Faith is like the title deeds to a property. Somebody has given you a house and you have not yet seen it. The legal documents guarantee that you own it and you are going to see it eventually. Faith is the title deeds of your possession in heaven. It is more than just understanding, it is being convinced that it is true. This is what God does by the Holy Spirit when you are enlightened. When you first come to Christ and your soul is enlightened, it is not just that these things are clear to you, they are real to you. You are not there yet, but you are as good as there. ‘The evidence of things not seen.’ We should not read this in the modern sense of the word evidence; it means unseen things have become evident to you. It is about the obviousness of things not seen, the vividness of them. Faith allows you to enjoy the possession of those things ahead of time.