What Is Biblical Faith? Understanding Hebrews 11:1

What Does Faith Really Mean?

Since I was a child one of my favorite Bible verses has been Hebrews 11:1,

"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."

That word faith is a difficult one to understand. What does faith really mean? Does it mean simply belief in God or does it mean more than that? I know so many people who believe they are Christians because they believe God exists. They may even say things like, "I love God so much." Is saying that we love God true faith or is there still more? To understand what Scripture means by faith, it helps to look at the words used in the original languages.

The Meaning of Faith

In Hebrew the word faith shares a root word with another word we are very familiar with, amen. Amen means yes or so be it. Faith in Hebrew means to be firm, steady or to support something. Faith is about relationships. It is action-oriented, not something that we think or feel in a passive way. In the Greek of the New Testament it is associated with words like assurance, confidence, loyalty, and trust.

The Greek word translated substance is hypostasis. It conveys the idea of something solid that stands underneath and supports something else. Faith is not wishful thinking. It is the firm assurance that we can rely on God's promises even when we cannot yet see them.

What is Biblical Faith? - More Than Wishful Thinking

So when we read Hebrews 11:1 it means we can trust that what God has promised will absolutely happen, even when we cannot yet see it. God's faithfulness to us is trustworthy. Faith is like a guarantee or a deed for what we hope for. One way to picture this is a deed. We can hold a deed for property we may have never seen. That deed is our guarantee of ownership. Faith is our inner assurance of something we have never seen. This absolute conviction that the Holy Spirit brings to us is what makes the invisible promises of God so real to us.

Faith Means Trusting God's Promises

Hebrews 11 goes on to mention specific examples of faith heroes from Scripture. In Hebrews 11:11 we find out why Sarah, and certainly the rest of the examples in this chapter, had this kind of faith. These faith heroes believed the promises of God would be faithfully fulfilled. His Word is truth. Because God is faithful and true we don't have wishful thinking about our future because it is a guaranteed expectation of a future reality.

The best analogy is of something simple like a chair. We can have "faith" that a chair will hold us up when we sit on it. We can know everything there is to know about how that chair was built but until we actually commit to sitting on it and rely on it alone to hold us up, that is when our faith is truly shown. The faith heroes of Hebrews 11 put the full weight of their lives on God's promises. They committed themselves to knowing He was faithful and true.

Faith is not a force or a feeling that we have to make ourselves have. I don't have to have a feeling that God's promises are true, I just have to act on that belief. Our faith trusts God. Isn't the God of all creation able to do what He has promised?

Faith That Changes How We Live

The author of Hebrews was writing to a church that was facing physical persecution and possible financial ruin for their faith. His point was that when we are tempted to walk away from Christ to save ourselves we must instead trust in God's unseen promises. There is more security in Him than in the world we see.

Biblical faith produces an action. Faith-filled followers of Jesus are transformed into new creations and that transformation requires action. In James 2:17, James tells us that "faith without works is dead." Paul expresses similar thoughts when he says that true and living faith in Jesus is shown by "faith working through love" (Galatians 5:6). And in Hebrews 11 every example begins the same way, "By faith..." and then an action!

Noah's faith led to building an Ark. Rahab's faith led to spies being hidden and saved from death. The faith of Moses' parents led to them hiding him for three months from Pharaoh's orders to kill baby boys . How has your own faith led to action? What can you honestly say you have done purely because you believed in God's promises?

The end of Hebrews 11 explains that even though all of these faith heroes were commended for their faith they still hadn't received their ultimate promise and that was the coming of the Messiah, Jesus Christ. You and I along with all the saints gone before still await His return. His "delay" as some see it is for our sake (2 Peter 3:9).

Faith That Does Not Waver

Throughout Scripture we see what this kind of faith looks like in the lives of those who trusted God. Paul describes Abraham as fully convinced that God was able to fulfill His promise. Paul says Abraham did not waver (Romans 4:20-21). Again, this is echoed in James 1:6-8 where he says that when we ask God for His wisdom we should ask in faith and not waver. He describes a "double-minded man" as unstable. This does not mean that we will never have questions or moments of uncertainty. It means that our ultimate confidence rests in God's faithfulness rather than our circumstances.

We see this plainly in Mark 9. A boy possessed by a mute spirit is brought to Jesus. His father begs Him to help them if He can. Jesus replies, "...all things are possible to him who believes." The father then replies, "...Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!" Jesus then heals the boy. Jesus heard his humbly honest plea, even though the father acknowledged his struggle to believe. We may not have the great faith we want but God still hears us and meets us in our struggle.

Faith Comes From Hearing God's Word

In 2 Corinthians 5:7 Paul reminds us that it is faith that we live by, not the things we can see. As Christians we can look past our immediate circumstances to see a bigger picture, the picture God has painted for us through His Word. It is a picture of hope. But where does this faith come from, and how do we continue to grow in it?

Paul gives us the answer in Romans 10:17. He says it comes from hearing the message from the Word of God. If we never open His Word, or read it prayerfully, or listen to it read at church, then how can we have faith? And how can our faith grow if we base it on only the things we may have learned as a child? God's Word speaks so powerfully if we let it.

Salvation Is a Gift Received Through Faith

Finally, in Ephesians 2:8-9 Paul tells us that salvation is a gift of God's grace, received through faith. It is available, but we must accept it when it is offered to us. Grace has been given to us—Jesus' gift of His life on the cross for us through no merit of our own.

Faith is trust in the unfailing love and truth that God has offered us. Because of this faith given to us as a gift we will act. The good that we do, the love that we show, the spiritual gifts that we grow in, could not happen without it. These are fruits of a living faith. Regardless of our feelings on any given day we can still have faith because it is based on the unfailing promises of our Father.

As C. S. Lewis expressed this beautifully when he said,

 “I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.”