Now faith is [the] substantiating of things hoped for, [the] conviction of things not seen.
Hebrews 11 opens by telling us what faith does before it lists the people who lived by it. Its two short phrases raise one question: how can what you cannot see be solid now?
Commentators point out what this line is not.
It is not a definition of this principle that the letter gives us at the start of Hebrews 11, but a declaration of its powers and action. Faith realises (gives substance to) that which we hope for, and is a demonstration to the soul of that which we do not see.
Its effects are plain to see. Faith itself is not.
No one can explain the mystery of faith, any more than the mystery of life, or light, or love, or a thousand and one things. God brings these things into existence, and alone knows their secret. Those of us who have faith can mark its effects, its powers, what it feeds on, and what it reaches for. But as to the thing itself, no one knows.
The ESV says "assurance." Older translations say "substance," and some render it "substantiating." Faith takes what God has promised and makes it real in your soul today.
"Faith is the substance," or "the substantiation of things hoped for." It is what makes the "things hoped for" a reality in the present. It is "the evidence," or, better, "the conviction" — what the power of divine truth brings into the soul as a reality, "of things not seen."
This is exactly what shaped Jacob's dying request that his body be carried out of Egypt for burial in the land God had promised.
The promise of God was a reality to their faith, since "Faith is the substantiating of things hoped for." The things hoped for are real, and faith substantiates them, or, makes them real, to us.
The second clause is often misread as a leap in the dark. The opposite is true.
Faith also has that special power of showing us "things not seen." Faith in the living God is not blind. It is the actual opening of the eyes, accepting unquestionable evidence that unseen, spiritual things are real.
Faith also settles where we look.
When wrong exists it is well that we should see it, but if that is all that we see, we easily go wrong ourselves. It is when the eye of faith is fixed on God, that we go right. We are told that, "faith is … the evidence of things not seen." Faith can see what is unseen to the natural eye.
If faith is not sight, what holds it up? Not feeling, not proof, but God's own testimony.
In Scripture, faith itself is simply believing God. It is accepting His word because He says it. It rests not on visible evidence or on reasoning, but on God's authority.
There is a difference between picturing heaven and knowing it is there.
Faith is not imagination. A poet may imagine heaven, as you can see in many poems; but this is mere fiction and does not exist. Faith knows what is real. A real glorified Jesus; a real city, whose builder and maker is God. Faith puts us in living connection with a real, living Lord, who has triumphed over death.
The first readers had Temple worship all around them. Their old friends had a taunt ready.
His old friends say to him, "You are surely a fool. Here is our Temple. The sacrifices go up and the silver trumpets sound. We have the ancient worship God Himself set up, and priests descended straight from Aaron. You can see our religion; you can smell it; you can hear it; we have the real thing. You have got only a little upper room, where your Master gathered His disciples. Now He is gone. Where has He gone? Really you have got nothing, you are running after mere ideas." … A few years after this letter, the Roman armies came and swept the whole shadow system off the map.
Faith is not just certainty about the future. It brings the future into present experience.
Faith gives present confidence in the future we hope for. In the same way it gives proof of things not seen. We look, according to the word and in the Spirit of God, at the things that are not seen and eternal. There is not only certainty but present enjoyment.
- Description, not definition — the verse shows what faith does, not what faith is. The thing itself stays God's secret.
- Word first — faith begins by accepting what God says because He says it, not on visible evidence or reasoning.
- Conviction next — "evidence" means conviction. Faith is not blindness but the opening of the eyes to what is real and unseen.
- Substance now — what you only hope for becomes solid today, so you can live on a promise before you receive it.
- Enjoyment already — faith gives more than certainty about the future; it gives present enjoyment of it. The visible religion their friends boasted in was swept away. What looked like "nothing" is what lasted.
For in [the power of] this the elders have obtained testimony.
This chapter lists the heroes of faith. It opens by naming what they gained: not fame among people, but God's own commendation. Older translations read, "by it the elders obtained a good report." So who are these "elders"? And what won them God's approval?
The word points back to people the first readers knew well. One writer asks what their reputation rested on:
That familiar expression shows he was writing to Hebrew Christians. They could look back on the fathers and call them "the elders," whose history they knew well. "The elders" of the Old Testament had obtained a good report by faith. What was the basis of their reputation? Was it any special worth in themselves? Not in the judgment of God. And faith always looks at things as God looks at them.
The same title belongs to a heavenly company:
"Elders" seems a fitting description for the heavenly redeemed. Hebrews 11 already applies it to the Old Testament saints. Though they obtained witness through faith, they did not receive the promise. God has provided some better thing for us, so that apart from us they should not be made perfect.
The commendation is not a reputation these people built.
Through it also the men of old obtained a good report — of course in God's history of things, not in man's. In Scripture it is easy to see what made these old worthies what they were: faith. How complete the contrast between the same men when faith energized them, and when it was at a low ebb in them!
The verse credits one thing only. That matters, because these lives were far from spotless.
It was not by their works, or by their lives, but by their faith that they obtained a good report. They were men and women with the same passions as ours. Their lives were marred by many a failure, and their works sometimes deserved blame. Still, despite all failure, they were marked by faith in God.
The first readers were Jews who leaned on the law. One writer puts a question to them:
"For by it the elders obtained a good report." Did legal-minded Jews consider this? Rigid law-keeping did not clothe the lives or works of the most outstanding Old Testament saints with such striking beauty. A genuine, active faith in God did.
The "it" of verse 2 points back to verse 1. So what is this faith?
Some people create a problem for themselves by wrongly assuming that we have here a definition of faith. That is not the aim. This is a description of faith's power, range, and effect. In Scripture, faith is believing God. It means accepting His word because He says it — not on visible evidence, not on reasoning, but on God's authority.
This faith was never just an idea in the head:
All through this chapter the writer speaks of faith in a practical way. "By it the elders obtained a good report." In every case he mentions, faith was so real and practical that it marked the man out.
Verse 2 opens what verse 39 closes. So where does this good report leave them now?
In the past they lived by faith. Today they have a good report. In the future they will enjoy the reward when they enter the promised blessings. The blessing of these Old Testament saints will be great. Yet God has provided some "better thing" for the Christian.
- The principle — Faith is believing God. You take His word on His authority alone — not on visible evidence, not on reasoning.
- The people — "The elders" are the fathers of the Old Testament. God honoured them not for any worth of their own, but because they looked at things the way He looks at them.
- The praise — God keeps this record of history, not people. The same men look very different when their faith is at a low ebb.
- The proof — Failure marred their lives, and their works sometimes deserved blame. Faith still won them a good report. Law-keeping never did.
- The prospect — They lived by faith. They hold a good report today. They still wait for the promise. God has provided something better for us, and they will not be made perfect apart from us.