By faith we understand
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. For by it the elders obtained a good testimony. By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible (Hebrews 11:1-3).
Hebrews 11 is about the reality of faith. It is the confidence and assurance of things looked for in the future. In everyday language, we often use the word “hope” to describe what we want to happen, but cannot be sure it will. On the other hand, hope is always used in the New Testament to mean a future certainty. This hope is described in Hebrews 6:19-20 as being “an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which enters the Presence behind the veil, where the forerunner has entered for us, even Jesus, having become High Priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.” Later, John writes that this hope is in the Person of Jesus Christ and it has a purifying effect on our lives: “And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure” (1 John 3:3). Faith in God is ancient and has worked effectively in the lives of the people of God from their beginning; by it we understand creation and we know the invisible God.
When I was at school, I developed an interest in art, which was fostered by my art teacher. One day he arranged to take our class to the local art gallery. It was a visit I have always remembered. We went from room to room, looking at the great pictures hanging from the high walls. Each one told its own story. The longer you looked at a work of art, the more you discovered about what the artist had painted. In Hebrews 11 we are taken into God’s picture gallery of faith. We are invited to look back at the lives of great men and women of God. The longer we look, the more we discover about the remarkable power of faith displayed in their lives. Their faith is all the more remarkable because they did not have the completed scriptures as we do. They had no knowledge of a risen, glorified Christ as we have. They had not experienced the Holy Spirit’s permanent and abiding presence as the Church has since Pentecost. But their remarkable lives teach us what it means to simply trust God.
The characters listed in the chapter were not without their faults. They made many mistakes and sometimes big ones. But when their lives are recorded in this chapter, we see only their faith. I remember the words of a dear Christian who, when he was in his nineties, told me that Hebrews 11 is not about the failures of God’s people but the faith of God’s people. This teaches us something important about how God looks upon His people. He sees us through Christ. Our Father rejoices in His children’s faith, and He deals quietly with our failures. This encourages us to rejoice in the faith of our fellow Christians, rather than dwelling, as we sometimes do, on their failures.
It seems to me that God was not only saying these people had faith, but in each of their stories the power of faith was demonstrated in an important and distinctive way. As we consider how they trusted in God and how He responded to their faith, we are encouraged to trust God in a more direct and straightforward way amidst the unbelief that surrounds us in today’s world. It is a journey on which we discover “the victory that has overcome the world – our faith” (1 John 5:4).
