What is Faith?

I have the privilege of teaching students at Alaska Bible College the mechanics of sermon preparation in our pastoral ministry track. As you know, ABC is committed to raising up the next generation of vocational Christian servants that will lead with Christlike character. I would like to share in this edition of the NorthWord, part one of a two-part message that Sean Ichinose gave recently in our Preaching I class at ABC:

Jumbo Shrimp. It’s perhaps the most famous oxymoron out there. I hear it with just about every explanation. But there are lots of better examples self-contradicting terms. Some are more common than you think. For example, student teacher. Which one are you? How about these: Well-known secret; Only choice; Random Order. Wait a minute. Hold on, some of these get good: Found missing: Original Copy: Free with purchase; The Down Escalator. And my personal favorite so far: Boneless Ribs.

Now, these can be quite amusing, but there is one phrase that when I hear it, something irks me inside. And yet, people seem to take it for granted. You want to know what it is? Blind Faith. This is an oxymoron, a self-contradictory statement. Why? Because blindness in this sense implies total ignorance and gullibility, foolishness. It implies a situation in which you don’t know anything about the person you’re trusting, and you’re doing whatever they’re telling you to do. That is, indeed, foolishness. But that is not faith. This is what the atheistic world likes to conclude Christianity must be because you cannot see anything spiritual. This self-contradicting phrase, blind faith, is so common thanks to a grave misunderstanding of what it means to believe.

As we can see from Hebrew 11:1-2 faith works in the absence of sight, but it is anything but ignorant. Hebrews 11 is often called the Bible’s Hall of Faith. Hebrews 11:1-2 introduce this faith chapter and give us a clear biblical definition of faith: “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. By it the men of old gained approval.”

In part one of this article, we will discover what is faith from a biblical perspective. In part two we will discuss what faith is not and what godly faith does. This is the only place in the New Testament that steps aside to give a definition of faith itself. For how crucial faith is to the gospel and the entire Christian walk, this tiny passage is precious. Let us begin with, what faith is:

“Now faith is the “assurance” (Hebrew 11:1a). Not insurance. Assurance. Assure. S--ure! Sure… This word, “sureness,” doesn’t mean a lot in our modern vernacular. It simply isn’t worth as much anymore. In fact, hit sounds like you’re lying if you start with, “I assure you—” When I think of an “assuring friend,” I sometimes think of someone coming alongside and saying, “Oh, everything’s going to be fine,” when it absolutely isn’t. Now, other translations say “confidence.” That’s a little better. But there are some translations that use the word, “reality.” The Greek word hypostasis is what the author of Hebrews uses. The structure of the word means something like to “stand under,” with “hypo” coinciding with hypothermia, meaning “under temperature.” But to “stand underneath” gives the idea of a foundation, and Greek philosophers began to use hypostasis as a term for existence, having being, realness, and hence comes the translation of “reality.” So, faith is the “reality” the things we hope for? Faith is the “existence” of things that don’t yet exist? If you take that at face value, it sounds like you’re delusional. “It’s real, I’m telling you!” Funny enough, that’s what some people think faith is—insanity. It’s just a huge game of make-pretend. But we’re not talking about pretending, and we’re not talking about delusions.

A Bible teacher once put it like this: “Faith is the present essence of a future reality.” The present essence of a future reality. Consider with me for a moment, the idea of a cheeseburger. Now our minds can grasp the idea of a cheeseburger. We can understand the form of it. But the mere idea does not have substance. There’s no beef in a mere concept. Now let’s not consider the idea of a cheeseburger, but the promise of a cheeseburger. You have this coupon to your favorite burger-joint that says you’ll get a free burger on Friday if you show up--fries, drink and all. Ooh. Now that delicious combo meal does not exist substantially or materially…yet. It’s Wednesday. But because you have a coupon, there is something within you concerning that burger on Friday that makes you look forward to it. You plan on being there. This is what biblical faith is. Faith in the coupon deal. That burger is not real! But it’s not just an idea, and it’s not just your imagination. What you have in you is the present essence of a future reality. Something is at work in your mind and heart because you have a promise entailed by the coupon. Faith will cause you to go to the restaurant on Friday without your wallet because you’re not supposed to pay.

Faith is not a mere figment of the imagination. It will affect how we act because it has to do with what we consider to be real. Whether you have faith in God, in a doctor’s report, in a government, or in a business contract—what you believe has tremendous, real influence now because within us, faith is the how things yet to be are. What a profound way the Bible puts it! It’s so much more than just “feeling sure” or “feeling confident.” Yet it’s so easy to miss because it’s packed into just one word: hypostasis. The reality of the not yet.

When you have faith, you have something real inside of you. It is not a mere figment of the imagination. It will affect how you act. Faith is everywhere in our lives whether we recognize it or not. Faith is not limited to some lofty mystical or spiritual sphere of things. God created human beings to be able to think about, plan about, and make decisions about things that are not yet, things in the future that we hope for that are not necessarily spiritual in nature. In fact, faith is at work in the mundane: faith that none of the chairs that one sits on will suddenly collapse, or faith that your car will start once the temperature goes down or…potentially not.

Now this is only one half of the picture of faith the book of Hebrews gives us. Hebrews 11:1b states, “Faith is…the conviction of things not seen.” Now that’s an interesting word in my translation…conviction. Hear it in church, and it has to do with the Holy Spirit pointing out the sin in your heart and making you feel miserable about it. Conviction elsewhere just seems to mean a firm feeling about something. “My convictions.” But conviction is related to convince. And to convince means to win someone over in an argument. If you know anyone named “Vince,” the name means “conqueror.” If you are convinced, then you have been won over. The Greek word translated conviction in my Bible has much to do with arguments. It is elegchos, and a direct translation is “that by which a thing is proved or tested.” It turns out to be a legal word for “proof,” and it is so tied up with arguing in court that many translations use the word evidence.

So, faith is…evidence for things not seen? That’s strange, someone says. There’s no proof for things you can’t see. Or is there? Is it all that strange to be convinced of something even though you can’t see it coming with your own eyes? You’re a soldier on the field. The commanding officer yells at you, “Building A is going to be hit with an airstrike in sixty seconds, so get out.” You look up in the sky, nothing. You don’t hear any jets; you don’t see any planes. What do you do? Stand next to the building? No! You get out of that area while you still have time! Why? In that moment, you find you have all you need to believe that the bombs are coming. The Air Force doesn’t tend to mess around with these things. You have faith in that warning. You have all the evidence, all the proof you need. No one else needs to tell you. When you have genuine faith in something, you have within you something that persuades you, proves to you, that what is not seen is still valid. We are not bound to be persuaded by someone who has broken our trust in the past. We are not bound to have faith in the claims of anybody, be it salesperson, repair shop, politician, or even a close friend when they’ve proven themselves unreliable. But on the other hand, if you have somebody who has never let you down and asks you to trust him or her with something entirely out of your control, you can have faith about what you cannot see. Why? Because you can say, you have proven yourself to me. I am convinced that you will come through. That is the evidence of things not seen.

So, when we look at both halves of Hebrews 11:1, what can we say faith is? Faith is what convinces us of the reality of things not yet realized. Hebrews 11:1 is talking about is faith in God, not just in anything. Hebrews 11 has much to say about faith in God…it’s the Hall of Faith for a reason. Right at the beginning of the chapter, the writer of Hebrews tells us what faith in God means.

Have you placed your faith in the only one who can forgive your wrongs and made you a new person in Jesus? The evidence of his life, death and resurrection is strong. We have good reason to be convinced of the reality of eternal life in Christ even though it has not yet been fully realized! “For God so loved the world, He gave His one and only Son, that whoever would believe in Him (be convinced of the reality of things not realized) will not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16)