Hebrews 11:1 - Meaning and Application

Here we have a definition of faith in two parts.

First, faith is the substance of things hoped for. Faith and hope belong together, and they look to the same promises. It is a strong confidence that God will do everything he has promised us in Christ. This confidence is so real that it gives the soul a kind of present possession of those future things, through the first taste and foretaste of them. So believers, while they trust God, are filled with joy that is beyond words and full of glory. Christ lives in the soul by faith, and the soul is filled with God’s fullness as far as its present measure allows. In that way, the believer experiences the objects of faith as a real and substantial thing.

Second, faith is the evidence of things not seen. Faith shows to the mind the reality of things the body’s eyes cannot see. It is the soul’s firm agreement with God’s revelation, every part of it, and it sets its seal that God is true. It fully approves everything God has revealed as holy, just, and good. It also helps the soul apply all of this to itself with fitting feelings and actions. In this way, faith is meant to serve the believer instead of sight, and to the soul it is what the senses are to the body. That faith is only opinion or imagination which does not make invisible things real to the soul and lead the soul to act in keeping with their value.

By this faith the elders obtained a good report (Hebrews 11:2), that is, the ancient believers who lived in the earliest ages of the world. True faith is an old grace, and it has the best claim to ancient standing. It is not a new invention or a modern idea. It has been planted in the human soul since the covenant of grace was first made known in the world, and it has been practiced from the beginning of God’s revelation. The oldest and best people who ever lived were believers.

Their faith was their honor. It reflected honor on them, and they also gave honor to their faith. It moved them to do things worthy of praise, and God has made sure that a record is kept of the excellent things they did in the strength of this grace. Genuine acts of faith can stand to be reported, deserve to be reported, and when they are reported, they bring honor to true believers.

Here we also have one of the first acts and truths of faith, which has great influence on all the rest and is common to all believers in every age and place: the creation of the world by the word of God, not from existing material, but out of nothing (Hebrews 11:3). Faith looks both backward and forward. It looks not only to the end of the world, but also to the beginning. By faith we understand much more about the making of the world than the human mind could ever learn by reason alone.

Faith does not force the mind. It helps the mind. It teaches us several things about the worlds, meaning the heavens, the earth, and everything in them. They were not eternal, and they did not make themselves. Another made them. That maker is God, the maker of all things, and whoever made all things must be God. He made the world with great care and exactness, so that each part was fit for its purpose and showed the perfection of its Maker. God made the world by his word, that is, by his own wisdom and eternal Son, and by his active will, when he said, “Let it be,” and it was done (Psalm 33:9). He also framed the world out of nothing, with no material already there. That goes against the common saying that nothing comes from nothing, which is true of created power but does not apply to God. He can call things that do not exist as though they did, and bring them into being by his command.

These things we understand by faith. The Bible gives the truest and clearest account of the origin of all things, and we should believe it. We should not twist or reject Scripture’s account of creation because it does not match some clever theory of our own. In some learned but proud people, that has been the first clear step toward unbelief, and it has led them into many other errors.