Hebrews 11:1

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for,.... The "faith" here spoken of is not a mere moral virtue, which is a branch of the law; nor a bare assent to anything revealed, declared, and affirmed

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Faith - in its widest sense: not restricted to faith in the Gospel.

CHAPTER 11 The nature of faith, and its acceptableness with God, set forth in the examples of many excellent persons of old time. Now faith: the Holy Spirit proceeds in this chapter to strengthen the counsel he had given these Hebrews to continue stedfast in the faith of Christ, to the end that they may receive their reward, the salvation of their souls, ; and so beginneth with a description of that faith, and proves it to be effectual to this end, by instances out of all ages of the world before them, wherein the Old Testament believers had found it to be so. The description of it is laid down, ; the proof of it in both parts, ,3; and the illustration of its power by examples, . The particle de shows this is inferred as a discovery of that faith, which is saving or purchasing the soul; which that none of these Hebrews may be mistaken in, he describeth from its effect, and not from its form and essence. Faith is here a Divine fruit of the Spirit, given and wrought by it in his elect, and is justifying and purchasing the soul to glory, ,20 2:8. Is the substance of things hoped for: upostasiv, in , notes confidence of boasting; , personal subsistence; and , confidence of faith. Here it is a real, present, confident assent of the soul of a believer to the promise of God, (which is the basis or foundation of it), by which the spiritual good things to come, and which fall not under sense, yet with a most vehement and intense desire urged for, are made to have a mental, intellectual existence and subsistence in the soul which exerciseth it, ,26 John 3:36. The evidence of things not seen: elegkoi is a demonstrative discovery of that which falleth not under sense, such as is scientifical, and puts matters out of question to a man; and therefore is styled by logicians a demonstration: here it notes faith to be that spiritual space which by God’ s revelation demonstrates or makes evident all things not seen by sense, or natural reason, without it, as matters of spiritual truth, good and evil in their several kinds, both past, present, and to come, ,8 Ephesians 1:17,18.

1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Ver. 1. Now faith is the substance] Having mentioned the life of faith, Hebrews 10:38, and the end of faith (or the reward of it, 1 Peter 1:9), the salvation of the soul, Hebrews 10:39, he now descends to the description of this glorious grace, James 2:1, and saith that it is the substance or subsistence or basis and foundation of things hoped for. It is the same that our author had called confidence, Hebrews 10:35. Polybius, speaking of Horatius’ keeping the field against the enemy’ s forces, saith, that the enemies more feared his υποστασις (the word here used), his confidence binding upon the victory, than his strength. Faith is the vital artery of the soul (saith one), Habakkuk 2:4, and by the eye of it, through the perspective glass of the promises, a Christian may see into heaven. Faith doth antedate glory; it doth substantiate things not seen. Faith altereth the tenses, and putteth the future into the present tense, Psalms 60:6. It is reported of the crystal that the very touching of it quickeneth other stones and puts a lustre and beauty upon them. (Gul. Parisiens.) This is true of faith; it makes evil things present, far off; and good things far off, present. The evidence of things, &c.] The index, ελεγχος, or the clear conviction by disputation, or by making syllogisms from the word. Indeed it is the word (to speak properly) that is the convincing evidence of things not seen; but because the word profiteth not further than it is mingled with faith in the heart, therefore that which is due to the word is here ascribed to faith.

(1) We have seen how the writer approached the subject which is the chief theme of this last division of this Epistle. The coming of the Lord, for judgment upon His adversaries, for salvation to His people, draws nigh. In the midst of dangers and judgments God’s righteous servant shall live, and the ground, of his life is his steadfast faith—if he shrink back, destruction will overtake him. “Our principle of action” (the writer says to his Hebrew readers) “is not shrinking back, but faith. And faith is this. . . .” It has been debated whether that which follows is a definition of what faith is, or in reality a description of what faith does. It is not a complete definition, in the sense of including all the moments of thought which are present in the word as used in the last chapter (Hebrews 11:38) or in this. The “things hoped for” are not mere figments of the imagination; their basis is the word of God. If we keep this in mind, the words, still remaining general in their form, agree with all that has led up to them and with all that follows; and whether they be called definition or description will be of little consequence. The exact meaning of the special terms here used it is not easy to ascertain. The word rendered “substance” has already occurred twice in the Epistle. In Hebrews 1:3 this was its true meaning—the essence which, so to speak, underlies, “stands under,” the qualities possessed. In Hebrews 3:14 the same metaphor of standing under is applied to steadfastness, confidence (see the Note). The former of these renderings the Authorised version.—in this instance deserting the earlier translations (which for the most part have “sure confidence” or “ground”) to follow the Rhemish in its rendering of the Latin. substantia—has made familiar in the present passage. The sense which it presents, however, is not very clean; and the symmetry of the verse almost compels us here to make choice of some word which denotes an act, or at all events an attitude, of the mind. Most commentators of our own day accept the second meaning explained above, “confidence” or “assurance in regard to things hoped for.” To adopt Dr. Vaughan’s clear explanation, “Faith is that principle, that exercise of mind and soul, which has for its object things not seen but hoped for, and which, instead of sinking under them as too ponderous, whether from their difficulty or from their uncertainty, stands firm under them—supports and sustains their pressure—in other words, is assured of, confides in and relies on them.” This interpretation yields an excellent sense, and has the advantage of assigning to the Greek word a meaning which it certainly bears in an earlier chapter, and in two places of St. Paul’s Epistles.

CHAPTER XI. A definition of faith, 1, 2. What are its immediate objects, 3. What are its effects, instanced in Abel, 4 In Enoch, 5, 6. In Noah, 7. In Abraham, 8-10. In Sara, 11. In their righteous posterity, 12-16 In Abraham's offering of his son Isaac, 17-19. In Isaac, 20. In Jacob, 21. In Joseph, 22. In Moses, 23-28. In the Israelites in the wilderness, 29. In the fall of Jericho, 30. In Rahab, 31. In several of the judges, and in David, Samuel, and the prophets, 32-34. The glorious effects produced by it in the primitive martyrs, 35-40. NOTES ON CHAP. XI. Verse 1. Faith is the substance of things hoped for] Εστιδεπιστιςελπιζομενωνὑποστασις· Faith is the SUBSISTENCE of things hoped for; πραγματωνελεγχοςουβλεπομενων·. The DEMONSTRATION of things not seen. The word υποστασις, which we translate substance, signifies subsistence, that which becomes a foundation for another thing to stand on. And ελεγχος signifies such a conviction as is produced in the mind by the demonstration of a problem, after which demonstration no doubt can remain, because we see from it that the thing is; that it cannot but be; and that it cannot be otherwise than as it is, and is proved to be. Such is the faith by which the soul is justified; or rather, such are the effects of justifying faith: on it subsists the peace of God which passeth all understanding; and the love of God is shed abroad in the heart where it lives, by the Holy Ghost. At the same time the Spirit of God witnesses with their spirits who have this faith that their sins are blotted out; and this is as fully manifest to their judgment and conscience as the axioms, "A whole is greater than any of its parts;" "Equal lines and angles, being placed on one another, do not exceed each other;" or as the deduction from prop. 47, book i., Euclid: "The square of the base of a right-angled triangle is equal to the difference of the squares of the other two sides." ελεγχος is defined by logicians, Demonstratio quae fit argumentis certis et rationibus indubitatis, qua rei certitudo efficitur. "A demonstration of the certainly of a thing by sure arguments and indubitable reasons." Aristotle uses it for a mathematical demonstration, and properly defines it thus: Ελεγχοςδεεστιςὁμηδυνατοςαλλωςεχειν, αλλ' οὑτωςὡςἡμειςλεγομεν, " Elenehos, or Demonstration, is that which cannot be otherwise, but is so as we assert." Rhetor. ad Alexand., cap. 14, περιελεγχου. On this account I have adduced the above theorem from Euclid. Things hoped for] Are the peace and approbation of God, and those blessings by which the soul is prepared for the kingdom of heaven. A penitent hopes for the pardon of his sins and the favour of his God; faith in Christ puts him in possession of this pardon, and thus the thing that was hoped for is enjoyed by faith.

1. Now faith] Since he has said “we are of faith to gaining of the soul,” the question might naturally arise, What then is faith? It is nowhere defined in Scripture, nor is it defined here, for the writer rather describes it in its effects than in its essence; but it is described by what it does. The chapter which illustrates “faith” is full of works; and this alone should shew how idle is any contrast or antithesis between the two. Here however the word “faith” means only “the belief which leads to faithfulness”—the hope which, apart from sight, holds the ideal to be the most real, and acts accordingly.the substance of things hoped for] The word “hypostasis,” here rendered “substance,” as in Hebrews 1:3, may mean (1) that underlying essence which gives reality to a thing. Faith gives a subjective reality to the aspirations of hope. But it may be used (2) in an ordinary and not a metaphysical sense for “basis,” foundation; or (3) for “confidence,” as in Hebrews 3:14 (comp. 2 Corinthians 9:4; 2 Corinthians 11:17): and this seems to be the most probable meaning of the word here. St Jerome speaks of the passage as breathing somewhat of Philo (“Philoneum aliquid spirans”), who speaks of faith in a very similar way.the evidence of things not seen] The word rendered “evidence” means “demonstration,” or “test.”not seen] i.e. which are as yet invisible, because they are eternal and not temporal (2 Corinthians 4:18; 2 Corinthians 5:7). God Himself belongs to the things as yet unseen; but Faith—in this sense of the word, which is not the distinctively Pauline sense (Galatians 2:16; Galatians 3:26; Romans 3:25)—demonstrates the existence of the immaterial as though it were actual. The object of faith from the dawn of man’s life had been Christ, who, even at the Fall, had been foretold as “the seed of the woman who should break the serpent’s head.” The difference between the Two Covenants was that in the New He was fully set forth as the effulgence of the Father’s glory, whereas in the Old He had been but dimly indicated by shadows and symbols. Bishop Wordsworth quotes the sonnet of the poet Wordsworth on these lines:“For what contend the wise? for nothing lessThan that the Soul, freed from the bonds of sense,And to her God restored by evidenceOf things not seen, drawn forth from their recess,Root there—and not in forms—her holiness.”

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for - On the general nature of faith, see the notes on Mark 16:16.

2. .—The glories of Faith in its illustrious examples of old, Hebrews 11:1 to Hebrews 12:2.1.