Faith Defined, Demanded, and Demonstrated

Faith Defined, Demanded, and Demonstrated

These all died in faith

Hebrews 11

Faith’s Hall of Fame rises before our wondering eyes.  If “the just shall live by faith,” then we want to understand all we can about it.  The chapter opens with a definition of faith as being “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.  Here is faith set forth most succinctly.  That which is unseen, faith sees.  That which is hoped for, faith possesses.  It is that quality which “staggers not at the promise of God through unbelief.”  It is the unwavering spiritual certainty that God is, and that He will do all that He has said.  It is this faith that the latter portion of the first segment of the chapter demands, for “without faith it is impossible to please God.”  There is no room for half-hearted, vacillating double-mindedness.  Faith wants to be, as the old saying goes, “all wool and a yard wide.” Such faith is utterly impossible apart from the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit renewing us in the whole person after the image of Christ. All the dint of effort we can exert will not produce such faith. It is the work of God’s free grace.

Having set forth the definition of faith in such a clear manner and having so boldly demanded faith from us, the writer expends himself throughout the remainder of the chapter to demonstrate for us the faith of which he has spoken as it appears in the life histories of the saints of old.

Beginning with Abel who demonstrated faith in worship, he proceeds to Noah who demonstrated faith in his work.  He then transitions to Abraham who demonstrated his faith in waiting for God’s fulfillment of promise.  On and on he writes until the portraits of the faithful arise before us like “so great a cloud of witnesses.” These are holy, faithful folk, who lived their lives in the light of the forthcoming Christ. Their faith was placed in the coming of the One whom “having not seen, (they) loved.” They, now being in the Presence of Christ, gather as if in a great coliseum, to observe how we live by faith.

Here is our holy heritage, our foregone family, our spiritual soul-mates.  Oh, that at the last it may be proven through the manner in which we “run the race that is set before us” that we are worthy to be counted in their number.  To this end, we look to Jesus, “the Author and Finisher of our faith.”

Oh God of the faithful,

so make us to be 

faithful unto death

and to receive that

crown of life.

Where the Bush is Burning

Tomm Tice