Hitherto the Jewish Christians had continued to celebrate the ancient ritual, and their presence in the temple and the synagogue had been tolerated by their unbelieving countrymen; but now they were in danger of excommunication, and it is hardly possible for us to conceive their distress and dismay.
Their veneration for the institutions of Moses had not been diminished by their acknowledgment of the Messiahship of the Lord Jesus; for them, as well as for the rest of their race, an awful sanctity rested on the ceremonies from which they were threatened with exclusion. Therefore, the writer of this Epistle calls up the most glorious names of Jewish history to confirm his vacillating brethren in their fidelity to the Lord Jesus Christ. It was not by offering sacrifices, nor by attending festivals, nor by the pomp and exactness with which they had celebrated any external rites and ceremonies, that the noblest of their forefathers had won their greatness, but by their firm and steadfast trust in God. (R. W. Dale, LL. D.)
What is faith?
The word “faith” is sometimes used for the object of faith, for the thing to be believed; as when it is said in Acts, “A great company of priests were obedient to the faith.” But it is quite evident, from the whole series of the examples by which the definition is followed, that it is not of the thing believed, but of the act of believing, that the apostle speaks in the chapter before us. Yet when used of the act of believing, faith will be found to have different senses. Thus it is applied to what may be called historical faith--a bare assent to the truths revealed in Scripture; and this would seem to be the strict use of the term when St. James says, “Faith, if it have not works, is dead.” Then, besides historical faith, there is what may be called temporary faith--faith which for a time seems productive of true fruits, and then comes to nothing. There is also another kind of faith mentioned in the New Testament; but it does not similarly occur amongst ourselves. This is what divines call the faith of miracles, belief in some particular promise or power, through which, whether as an instrument or as a condition, some supernatural work is wrought. Many had faith in Christ’s power to heal their bodies who knew nothing of Him as the Physician of their souls. But, confining ourselves to the cases of historical faith and temporary faith, as being those which are but too likely to pass with us for saving faith, will either of the two answer strictly to the definition which constitutes our text? Let us look carefully at the definition. It consists of two parts; and the one is not to be considered as a mere repetition of, or a different way of putting the other. First, the apostle calls faith “the substance of things hoped for.” Now “things hoped for” are things which have no present subsistence; so far as our enjoyment or possession of them is concerned, they must be future. But “faith,” the apostle says, “is the substance of things hoped for.” It is that which gives a present being to these things. It takes them out of the shadowy region of probability, and brings them into that of actual reality. Faith is, moreover, the “ evidence of things not seen.” By “things not seen” we understand such as are not to be ascertained to us by our senses, or even by our reason--not seen either by the eye of the body or by the far more powerful eyeof the mind. These are the truths and facts revealed to as by the Word of God, and of which, independently on that Word, we must have remained wholly ignorant. Its province is with invisible things, and of these it is “the evidence”--the demonstration, or conviction--as the original word signifies. It serves as a glass by which we can see what we cannot see without a glass; not putting stars where there are none, but enabling us to find them where we saw none. Now will the historical faith, or the temporary faith answer to this description of faith? We may put out the case of temporary faith, for this is excluded not so much by not corresponding to the definition while it lasts, as by not lasting. We may not be able to show its defects while alive, but we can of course detect them when dead. But historical faith--the believing what is represented of Jesus Christ, in the same sense, mode, or degree as they believe what is represented of Julius Caesar--this, which passes with many men for the faith which Scripture demands--will this answer to the Scriptural definition of faith? Is, then, this historical faith “the substance of things hoped for”? Nay, the heart, the affections must be interested, before there can be “ things hoped for.” And, by a similar brief process, we may prove the want of correspondence between historical faith and the second clause of St. Paul’s definition. Is such faith “the evidence of things not seen”? Does it make things not seen as certain to a man as things seen?--for this is the force of the definition. Does it, for example, make hell, which is not seen, as certain to the sinner as the gallows, which is seen, to the criminal given over to the executioner? None of you will maintain this. Unseen things, which, if they exist at all, must immeasurably transcend things seen, cannot be as certain to a man as things seen, if that man give them not the preference, and far more if he treat them with neglect: Now this turns the definition in our text to good account, forasmuch as it operates to the separating historical faith from saving faith, the faith of the great mass of men from that intended by the apostle when he said, “For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness.” If, then, we now turn to justifying faith, we shall have to give it a seat in the heart as well as the mind--and see whether this will not make it correspond with the apostle’s definition. And when a man thus believes with the heart as well as with the mind, faith will be to him “the substance of things hoped for.” The things on which his expectation rests will be the things promised in the Bible. These, as the chief good, will seem to him immeasurably preferable to any good already in possession. They will, therefore, be the objects of his hope. But will they be mere shadows, brilliant and beautiful, but perhaps only meteors, which may cheat him to the last, and vanish within his grasp? Not so; faith gives them a present subsistence. And this “faith is” moreover “the evidence of things not seen”; it gives to the invisible the sort of power possessed by the visible. A thing may be unseen and yet have just the same power as if it were seen. Let me be only sure that a man concealed by a curtain is taking aim at me with a murderous intent, and I am moved with the same fear, and make the same spring for my life, as if the curtain were away and I were face to face with the assassin. Now faith takes away the curtain; not that faith which is only the assent of the understanding, for this may leave me indifferent as to the emotions of the mind, but that faith which, having its seat in the affections, must excite dread of danger and desire to escape. This faith takes away the curtain; not so, indeed, as to make the man visible, but so as to make me as sure of his being there, and with the purpose of bloodshed, as if he were visible. Therefore is such a faith the conviction of things not seen; and the believer, he who believes in God’s Word with the heart as well as with the understanding, may be said, in virtue of that great principle, to draw back the veil which to every other eye hangs so darkly between the temporal and the spiritual, and therefore suited to inspire him with confidence. It is in this way, then, that faith, which is such an assent of the mind to the truth of God’s Word as flows into the heart, and causes the soul to build upon that Word, answers thoroughly to both parts of that definition of faith which St. Paul has ]aid down in our text. But now you will say to me, Is this justifying faith? have I not rather given a description generally of faith, than of that particular faith which is represented as appropriating the blessings of the gospel? Not so. True, saving faith has for its object the whole revealed truth of God, though we call it justifying faith, as it fixes specially on the promise of remission of sins by the Lord Jesus Christ. It may be my faith in one particular declaration or doctrine which justifies me, but, nevertheless, my faith in that one particular doctrine is noways different from my faith in every other doctrine similarly announced and similarly established. The “things hoped for” from Christ are especially the pardon of sin, the gift of righteousness, and admission to the kingdom of heaven. Of these things is faith the substance; to these it gives a sure and present subsistence, making them as though not only promised, but performed; so strong while faith is in true exercise, is the sense of acceptance, the assurance of being “heirs of God,” yea, “joint heirs with Christ.” And the “things not seen” are the past work of Christ in His humiliation and the present work of Christ in His glory. But of these “things not seen” faith is the evidence or conviction. The believer is just as sure of Christ’s having died for him, as if he had seen Him die; just as sure of Christ’s ever living for him, as if, with Stephen, he “ saw heaven open and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.” There is, however, one caution which should be here introduced; for otherwise, whilst we wish to give instruction, we may but darken knowledge, and minister to anxiety. You are not to confound faith and assurance, as though no man could be saved by believing, unless he believe himself saved. “It seems,” says Archbishop Usher, “that justifying faith consisteth in these two things, in having a mind to know Christ and a will to rest upon Him; and whosoever sees so much excellency in Christ, that thereby he is drawn to embrace Him as the only rock of salvation, that man truly believes unto justification. Yet it is not necessary to justification to be assured that my sins are pardoned and that I am justified, for that is no act of faith as it justifieth, but an effect and fruit that followeth after justification. For no man is justified by believing that he is justified--he must be justified before he can believe it; no man is pardoned by believing that he is pardoned--he must be pardoned before he can believe it. Faith as it justifieth, is a resting upon Christ to obtain pardon. But assurance, which is not faith in Christ, but rather faith in my faith, may, or may not follow on the justifying faith. You see, then, that our text accurately defines what is justifying faith, though it does not distinguish that faith from faith generally, neither does it leave us to confound it with assurance. You are not to go away and say, “Oh! saving faith is something altogether strange and mystical, unlike any other species of faith; it is not a kind by itself, it is peculiar only in its object. All faith which is not merely historical, is “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen”; and he who has this faith in the truth that God made him, has the principle of which he has but to change the direction, and he has faith in the truth that Christ redeemed him. (H. Melvill, B. D.)
Faith:
This is the only place in the Bible where we have what we can call a definition of faith. That faith which is the foundation of all other Christian graces--the title by which we keep our place as Christians--the inward working which has its fruit in good works--the hand by which we lay hold on God and on Christ, is here said to be the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen; and by substance, no doubt, is here meant firm confidence, and by evidence is meant conviction. Faith is the laying hold of the future in the midst of the present, of the unseen in the midst of the seen. It is this which marks the true disciple of Christ, that he walks by faith and not by sight. If the world were what it ought to be, there would be little trial of this faith. But though the world was made very good, and though all that cannot be touched by the influence of our sins is still very good, yet the world, as we have made it, is by no means like the handiwork of God. We see all around us a strange contradiction to what we are told, that justice, and truth, and goodness are the most precious of all things known to man. We see often wrong prevail over right; we see the highest honour constantly given to what we know not to be the highest desert; we see mere strength, whether of body or mind, receive the consideration which ought to be reserved for real goodness. How often do we see plain instances of the success of mere rude strength; sometimes of forwardness; sometimes eve,, of cunning and want of strict truth. Nor is this all. Besides this incessant evidence that good does not govern the world, we are perpetually betrayed in the same thought by a traitor within ourselves. At every moment temptation comes; and the temptation is ever close at hand; the evil consequences of yielding seem far away. However much we may be convinced that in the end obedience to duty is better than sin, we find it hard to remember our conviction at the moment that it is wanted. But in the midst of all this, in spite of what our eyes perpetually tell us, and in spite of the strange forgetfulness which our inclinations perpetually cast over Us, in spite of contradictions without and weakness within, there is a voice from the depths of our own souls that never ceases to repeat that right is really stronger than wrong, and truth is better than falsehood, and justice is surer than injustice. To believe this voice, and to obey it; to surrender to it the guidance of the life in the firm conviction that it will guide us to the true end of our being; to do this is faith. This trusting to the voices that speak within, even when they flatly contradict the voices that speak without, is obviously not peculiar to Christians. The Jew had put into his hands the Word of God as far as it was then written. He was put under a system which God had commanded to be observed. Both in one and in the other he found much that was unintelligible, much that seemed either without a purpose or with a purpose not worth pursuit. Through all that was strange and dark, and even contradictory, it was impossible not to know in his heart that the Spirit which inspired the Bible was the same Spirit as that which sometimes whispered and sometimes thundered in his own conscience, an authority which he could not awe, and could not influence, entering into the very secrets of his soul, and yet no part of himself, and that this Spirit was the voice of God. To throw himself unreservedly on the power which was thus revealed to him, both from within and from without, to accept with unconditional submission the guidance of that Word: of God which was, in fact, the fuller expansion of the message given by conscience, to trust in Him who was thus revealed, in spite of every trial and every temptation; this was the faith of the Jew. Their revelation was imperfect. There still remained one question unanswered. The enemy which is hardest for us to encounter is not after all the sight of this world’s wrong and injustice. It is when conscience, at the very moment of demanding our obedience, proclaims also our sinfulness. We would believe, and live by our belief, in spite of all the contradictions and evil with which the world is filled: but we are so weak, so wicked, so hampered with the fetters both of nature and of habit. Will that awful voice, whose authority we dare not doubt, really lead us to peace or to our own destruction? The gospel gave the answer. We read there of One whose life, and words, and death force us to confess that He is the express image of that Father of whom our own conscience, and the prophets of old, have ever told us. We read of One who laid hold on human nature and made it His own, and consecrated it with a Divine power. We read His promises exactly corresponding to that very need which our souls feel every day more keenly. And all this is written down not merely in words but in the deeds of a history such as never man passed through beside, of a history whose every word touches some feeling of our heart, echoes some whisper of our spirit. He bids us surrender ourselves to Him, following His leading, trust in His protection, His power; He promises us by sure, though it may be by slow degrees, but with the certainty of absolute assurance, to join us to His Father and to Himself: He promises not merely to undo some day the riddle of the world, and give the good and the just a visible triumph over the evil and the wrong, but, what we need much more, He promises to give us the victory over sin within ourselves, and to prove to us that God has forgiven us by the infallible token of His having cleansed us. To throw ourselves on these promises, to purify ourselves in the full assurance that Christ’s love can carry us through all that we shall encounter, to cling to Christ not only in spite of pain and darkness, and strange perplexity, but in spite of our own sins also, this is our substance of things hoped for, this is our evidence of things not seen, this is Christian faith. This is, St. John tells us, the victory which overcometh the world. This is the power which, both in great things and in small, both in hard trials and in easy, ever supports the disciple of Christ by bringing within his reach all the strength of his Master. (Bp. Temple.)
Faith defined:
I. FAITH IS THE CONFIDENT PERSUASION OF UNSEEN THINGS. The word translated “ substance” occurs in Heb_3:14; 2Co_9:4; 2Co_11:17, and is translated “confidence.” The word translated “evidence” is from a verb which signifies “to convince.” “Faith is the confidence of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”
1. Faith is not belief on the evidence of the senses.
2. Faith is not credulity. God is essential truth, then it is reasonable to repose in what He has said.
3. Faith is not a mere assent of the understanding.
II. FAITH IS THE SOURCE OF ALL SPIRITUAL ACHIEVEMENT. “By it the elders” achieved all that this chapter records. Faith was the secret of what they were and did.
1. The New Testament ascribes all Christian life to faith. “Whosoever believeth shall not perish,” &c.; “sanctified by faith”; “this is the victory that,”&c.; “wherein believing ye rejoice,” &c.; “kept by the power,” &c.
2. This is due to the fact that all Christian life is the result of heavenly influences, and faith lifts it into these. It raises the soul into the heavenly world; brings future things near, and makes Christ live before us. The effect of this on our spiritual nature is its development, like that of a tropical plant brought from a cold land into its native clime and proper conditions.
III. FAITH IS THE MEANS OF SECURING THE DIVINE COMMENDATION. “Obtained a good report.”
1. This shows our personal responsibility with regard to faith.
2. This is a strong consolation to infirm and secluded believers. (C. New.)
Saving faith:
There were those who one time asked the Saviour, “What shall we do that we might work the works of God?” To this He replied, “This is the work of God, that ye believe on Him whom He hath sent.” The issue, then, between God and men is narrowed down to this--“only believe.”
I. THE MEANING OF THE TERM.
1. Sometimes the word refers merely to a creed, with no notion in it of spiritual experience at all (1Ti_4:1; Jud_1:3).
2. When the Bible speaks of faith, it sometimes means mere belief in facts (Heb_11:3). This kind of faith is necessary, in a certain sense, to salvation: “for he that cometh to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him.” The facts of the Saviour’s life are to be received in that way. But this is not saving faith at all.
3. Again; faith sometimes means that conviction of the understanding which results from proofs laid before it, or arguments adduced. This is that which the woman wrought among her neighbours when she came back from the conversation with Jesus at Jacob’s well. This also is the faith which Thomas had when asked to put his hand in the side of his Lord. But this is not saving faith; for our Lord immediately added, “Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.”
4. And sometimes the Bible means the faith of miracles. This was a peculiar gift, bestowed by Christ upon His immediate followers. Now, whatever was the nature of this peculiar endowment, it is evident enough that there was no grace in it to save the soul; for the Saviour Himself declared Mat_7:22-23).
5. Then, lastly, the Bible means saving faith; the true belief in the Lord Jesus Christ, through which we are justified, and by which we live.
II. THE NATURE OF THIS EXERCISE. The old writers used to say that faith was composed of three elements: a right apprehension, a cordial assent, and an unwavering trust. Let me seek to exhibit these in turn in a very familiar way.
1. To apprehend is really a physical act, and means to seize hold of. When applied to mental operation, it signifies to conceive clearly any given object, and hold it before the mind for examination and use. It does not always include a full comprehension. A drowning man may catch a rope that hangs near him, and be rescued by it, without knowing who threw it to him, or who will draw it in, or what vessel it trails from. He apprehends it, but he does not comprehend it. He sees it, but he does not see all with which it is connected. The two essential things for every man to apprehend, are his own need and Jesus Christ’s fitness to supply it. There is the inward look, and then there is the outward look. I cannot help myself, and the Saviour can help me are the two thoughts that must lie buried deep in his soul. It matters little how these things are learned.
2. Then comes the second element of faith, already mentioned--namely, assent. This is a step in advance of the other. A simple illustration will make plain what is meant by it. An invalid is sometimes very unwilling to admit his danger, even when he has nothing to oppose to the reasoning of one who proves it. He feels his weakness, but he resorts to a thousand subterfuges to avoid yielding to the physician. His judgment is convinced, but his will is unbroken. He apprehends his danger, and knows the remedy; but he refuses to be helped. What he needs now is assent; and this requires humility and the renunciation of self-will. Faith includes this. It calls for a cheerful submission to God’s requirements, the moment we apprehend them, no matter how humiliating the assertion of our ill-desert may be.
3. The third element of saving faith is trust. By this I mean reliance on the truth of what God said He would do; a quiet resting on His promises to accomplish all we need for salvation.
III. THE USE TO BE MADE OF THIS ANALYSIS comes next to view. Your experience hitherto has been something like this. You have seen your need; you have gone in prayer to Jesus confessing it. You said in your prayer, “O Lord, I am vile, I come to Thee; I plead Thy promise that Thou wilt not cast me out; I give myself away in an everlasting surrender; I leave my soul at the very foot of the Cross!” And then you rose from your knees, murmuring, “Oh, I am no better; I feel just the same as before!” You saw that you had made a failure. Now, where was the lack? Simply in the particular of trust. You would not take Jesus at His word. When you have given yourself to Christ, leave yourself there, and go about your work as a child in His household. When He has undertaken your salvation, rest assured He will accomplish it, without any of your anxiety, or any of your help. There remains enough for you to do, with no concern for this part of the labour. Let me illustrate this posture of mind as well as I can. A shipmaster was once out for three nights in a storm; close by the harbour, he yet dared not attempt to go in, and the sea was too rough for the pilot to come aboard. Afraid to trust the less experienced sailors, he himself stood firmly at the helm. Human endurance almost gave way before the unwonted strain. Worn with toil, beating about; worn yet more with anxiety for his crew and cargo; he was well-nigh relinquishing the wheel, and letting all go awreck, when he saw the little boat coming with the pilot. At once that hardy sailor sprang on the deck, and with scarcely a word took the hehn in his hand. The captain went immediately below, for food and for rest; and especially for comfort to the passengers, who were weary with apprehension. Plainly now his duty was in the cabin; the pilot would care for the ship. Where had his burden gone? The master’s heart was as light as a schoolboy’s; he felt no pressure. The pilot, too, seemed perfectly unconcerned; he had no distress. The great load of anxiety had gone for ever; fallen in some way or other between them. Now turn this figure. We are anxious to save our soul, and are beginning to feel more and more certain that we cannot save it. Then comes Jesus, and undertakes to save it for us. We see how willing He is; we know how able He is; there we leave it. We let Him do it. We rest on His promise to do it. We just put that work in His hands to do all alone; and we go about doing something else; self-improvement, comfort to others, doing good of every sort. (C. S. Robinson, D. D.)
Faith convinced of the invisible
I. No faith will carry us through the difficulties of our profession, from oppositions within and without, giving us constancy and perseverance therein unto the end, BUT THAT ONLY WHICH GIVES THE GOOD THINGS HOPED FOR A REAL SUBSISTENCE IN OUR MINDS AND SOULS. But when by mixing itself with the promise which is the foundation of hope, it gives us a taste of their goodness, an experience of their power, the inhabitation of their first-fruits, and a view of their glory, it will infallibly effect this blessed end.
II. The peculiar specificial nature of faith, whereby it is differenced from all other powers, acts, and graces in the mind, lies in this, THAT IT MAKES A LIFE ON THINGS INVISIBLE. It is not only conversant about them, but mixeth itself with them, making them the spiritual nourishment of the soul (2Co_4:18).
III. THE GLORY OF OUR RELIGION IS, THAT IT DEPENDS ON AND IS RESOLVED INTO VISIBLE THINGS. They are far more excellent and glorious than anything that sense can behold or reason discover (1Co_2:9).
IV. GREAT OBJECTIONS ARE APT TO LIE AGAINST INVISIBLE THINGS, WHEN THEY ARE EXTERNALLY REVEALED. Man would desirously live the life of sense, or at least believe no more than what he can have a scientifical demonstration of. But by these means we cannot have an evidence of invisible things; at best, not such as may have an influence into our Christian profession. This is done by faith alone.
1. Faith is that gracious power of the mind, whereby it firmly assents unto Divine revelations, upon the sole authority of God the revealer, as the first essential truth, and fountain of all truth.
2. It is by faith that all objections against invisible things, their being and reality, are answered and refuted.
3. Faith brings into the soul an experience of their power and efficacy, whereby it is cast into the mould of them, or made conformable unto them Rom_6:17; Eph_4:21-23). (John Owen, D. D.)
Shadow and substance
I. THE HOPE OF ATTAINING A PERFECT LIFE IS ONLY TO BE REALISED BY FAITH IN CHRIST.
II. THE HOPE OF PERFECTING OUR LIFE-WORK CAN ONLY BE REALISED BY FAITH IN CHRIST.
III. THE HOPE OF PERFECTING OUR HAPPINESS IS ONLY TO BE REALISED BY FAITH IN CHRIST. (R. Balgarnie, D. D.)
Faith;
First, then, this chapter shows us the different ways and modes of the working of faith. And secondly, it speaks to all characters of persons, showing the manner in which faith will affect particular characters. New men declare faith to be unreasonable. “Acting on trust! “ says a godless man, “how strange a mode of acting! Surely those who do it are trusting to some vague fancy or feeling, they scarce know what, and call it faith.” I answer, Although the thing which we believe, the object of faith, is most marvellous, yet faith itself, belief in the object, is no such strange or unusual thing. Every man constantly acts on faith, and the very man who laughs at another for acting on faith acts on faith himself every day.
1. That man trusts his memory. He does not now see or feel what he did yesterday, yet he has no doubt it happened as he remembers it.
2. Again, when a man reasons he trusts his reasoning powers; he knows one thing is true, and sees clearly that another follows from that. For example, he sees long shadows on the ground; then he knows the sun or moon is shining without looking round to see. But some one raises an objection. He says, “Very true; but in memory, reason, and daily life we trust ourselves; in religion we trust the word of another, and that is hard.” But there is no real difficulty. In this world we act on the evidence of others. What do we know without trusting others? Are there not towns and cities within fifty miles of us we never saw, yet we fully believe they are there. (E. Munro.)
Faith:
Out of the first clause let me observe--That a lively faith doth give such a reality and present being to things hoped for and yet to come, as if they were already actually enjoyed. And thus it is said of Abraham Joh_8:56).
I. How DOES FAITH GIVE A SUBSISTENCE OR PRESENT BEING TO THINGS HOPED FOR? How can we be said to have that happiness which we do but expect?
1. By a lively hope it doth as it were sip of the cup of blessing, and foretaste those eternal delights which God hath prepared for us, and affects the heart with the certain expectation of them, as if they were enjoyed. It appears by the effect of this hope, which is rejoicing with joy unspeakable and full of glory (1Pe_1:8).
2. Faith takes possession, and gives a being to the things hoped for in the promises. There is not only the union of hope, but a clear right and title; God hath passed over all those things to us in the covenant of grace. When we take hold of the promises, we take hold of the blessing promised by the root of it, until it flows up to full satisfaction. Hence those expressions, believers are said “to layhold of eternal life” (1Ti_6:12-19), by which their right is secured to them; “And he that heareth My words, and believeth in Me, hath eternal life” (Joh_5:24). Christ doth not only say, He shall have eternal life, but he hath a clear right and title to it, which is as sure as sense, though not as sweet. Faith gives us heaven, because in the promise it gives us a title to heaven; we are sure to have that to which we have a title; he hath a grant, God’s Word to assure him of it. He is said to haste an estate that hath the conveyance of it, but it is not necessary he should carry his land upon his back.
3. We have it in our Head. That is a Christian’s tenure; he holds all in his head by Christ. Though he be not glorified in his own person, he is glorified in his Head, in Jesus Christ. Therefore as Christ’s glorification is past, so in a sense a believer’s glorification is past; the Head cannot rise, and ascend, and be glorified without the members (Eph_2:6).
4. Faith gives being in the first-fruits. The Israelites had not only a right to Canaan given them by God, but had livery of Canaan, where the spies did not only make report of the goodness of the land, but brought the clusters of grapes with them; so doth God deal with a believing soul, not only give it a right, but give it some first-fruits. A believing soul hath the beginnings of that estate which it hopes for; some clusters of Eschol by way of foretaste in the midst of present miseries and difficulties. This is the great love of God to us, that He would give us something of heaven here upon earth, that He wil make us enter upon our happiness by degrees.
II. THE BENEFIT AND ADVANTAGE OF THIS ACT, AND THE USE OF FAITH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE.
1. It is very necessary we should have such a faith as should substantiate our hopes, to check sensuality, for we find the corrupt heart of man is all for present satisfaction. And though the pleasures of sin be short and inconsiderable, yet because they are near at hand, they take more with us than the joys of heaven, which are future and absent.
2. It gives strength and support to all the graces of the spiritual life. The great design of religion is to bring us to a neglect of present happiness, and to make the soul to look after a felicity yet to come; and the great instrument of religion, by which it promoteth this design, is faith, which is as the scaffold and ladder to the spiritual building.
Use 1. To examine whether you have this kind of faith or no, which is the substance of things hoped for. To discover how little of this faith there is in the world, consider
(1) Many men say they believe, but alas, what influence have their hopes upon them? Do they engage them as things present and sensible do?
(2) You may discern it by your carriage in any trial and temptation. When heaven and the world come in competition, can you deny present carnal advantages upon the hopes of eternity? do you forsake all as knowing you shall have a thousand times better in another world?
(3) If faith do substantiate your hopes, though you do not receive present satisfaction, you may discern it by this, you will entertain the promises with much respect and delight. Are they dear and precious to you? You would embrace the promises if you looked upon them as the root of the blessing.
(4) You may discern it by this, the mind will often run upon your hopes. Where the thing is strongly expected, the end and aim of your expectation will still be present with you. Thoughts are the spies and messengers of the soul. Hope sends them out after the thing expected, and love after the thing beloved.
(5) You may discern it by your weanedness from the world. They that know heaven to be their home reckon the world a strange country.
(6) There will not be such a floating and instability in their expectation. You have already blessedness in the root, in the promises; and though there be not assurance, there will be an affiance, and repose of the mind upon God: if there be not rest in your souls, yet there will be a resting upon God, and a quiet expectation of the things hoped for. Faith is satisfied with the promise, and quietly hopes for the performance of it in God’s due time Lam_3:26).
Use 2. To exhort you to work up faith to such an effect, that it may be the substance of things hoped for.
(1) Work it up in a way of meditation. Let your minds be exercised in the contemplation of your hopes (Mat_6:21).
(2) Work it up in a way of argumentation. Faith is a reasoning grace (verse 19).
(3) Work it up in a way of expectation. Look for it, long for it, wait for it Tit_2:13; Jud_1:21).
(4) Work it up in a way of supplication. Put in thy claim--Lord! I take hold of the grace offered in the gospel; and desire the Lord to secure thy Psa_73:24).
(5) Work it up in a way of close and solemn application. In the Lord’s supper, there thou comest by some solemn rites to take possession of the privileges of the covenant, and by these rites and ceremonies which God hath appointed, to enter ourselves heirs to all the benefits purchased by Christ, and conveyed in the covenant, especially to the glory of heaven; there you come to take the cup of blessing as a pledge of the” new wine in your Father’s kingdom” (Mat_26:29). God here reacheth out to us by deed, our instrument, which was by promise due to every believing sinner before.
(6) Work it up in your conversations by constant spiritual diligence. Is heaven sure, so sure as if we had it already, and shall I be idle? Oh what contriving, striving, fighting, is there to get a step higher in the world! How insatiable are men in the prosecution of their lusts I and shall I do nothing for heaven, and show no diligence in pursuing my great happiness!
Use 3. To press you to get this faith. There are some means and duties that have a tendency hereunto.
(1) There must be a serious consideration of God’s truth, as it is backed with His absolute power.
(2) You must relieve faith by experiences: by considering what is past we may more easily believe that which is to come. (T. Manton, D. D.)
Faith a substance
I. FAITH IS A SUBSTANCE. I know this is not generally received, for such are the vague, carnal, infidel notions that are abroad in the world, that not a grace of the Holy Spirit is owned; and instead of faith being admitted to be a principle of grace, it is spoken of as nature’s actings, and is sometimes said to consist merely in the credence of a revealed fact. An opposite party, however, makes faith to consist in a crouching, a cringing, and a conformity to a crafty priesthood. Now I have no such faith as either of these. The one is the faith of the infidel; the other is the faith of heathenism. And they neither of them have any substance. I want a faith that will manifest itself as having substance. I have seen it printed that faith is nothing more than the credence of a revealed fact. But we know that infidels and devils have that sort of faith; for infidels credit thousands of revealed facts, and cannot deny them as matters of fact, yet they have no faith after all. Faith is a substance; and they who are taken up with shadows and vanities do not know the value of it. They cannot value it. They cannot possess it. Faith is a substance worth more than all the miser’s stores, than all the monarch’s revenue, than all the wealth of India. Faith is a substance that can never be frittered away. It overcomes all the world, repels all the devils in hell, and lays hold on eternal life. But, most probably, you will better understand what I mean by this substance of faith if I lead your attention to its origin and its object. Its origin: It grows not in nature’s garden. It is not the produce of the schools. It is not hereditary from father to son. It is far above that. Like every good gift, and every perfect gift, it cometh down from the Father of Lights. It is of the operation of the Holy Ghost, and its object will prove its substance. Its object is Christ; the Person of Christ; the official character of Christ; the perfect work of Christ; the covenant headship of Christ. And the faith of God’s elect fastens on all these. Further, the object of faith lies greatly in the enjoyment of Christ as well as in confidence in Him. And this will perhaps bring the nature of your faith to the test better than any other principle. I must have a Christ who will bring heaven to me on earth in the enjoyment of Him here. And this will prove whether your faith is a substance or not. The soul which possesses this living, saving faith, sighs, waits, and cannot be satisfied without the sensible enjoyment of the presence of Christ. That faith which is a substance hath a saving power communicated with it. Hence it is called, sometimes properly, sometimes improperly, a saving faith. Bring your faith up to this test again. It is spiritual faith--the substance of things hoped for, that discovers all that is in Christ; the wisdom, the righteousness, the sanctification, and the redemption that are in Him: the pardon, the peace, the justification, the joy, the security, the victories, the triumphs of all the Church of God in Christ, seen wholly in His Person.
II. This saving faith which so discovers and appropriates Is SURE TO GO AND PLEAD BEFORE THE THRONE IN EXERCISE; “for whatsoever is not of faith is sin,” and cannot be acceptable before God; and there it pleads the merits, the name, the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ for acceptance, relying upon the declaration of the precious Lord Himself, “All things whatsoever ye shall ask in My name, believing, ye shall receive.” Now I pray you let us look closely into this substance, and raise the inquiry, Does it belong to me? “Faith is the substance of things hoped for.” Then the first part of the interrogation here would be, What are the things that I hope for? I know if I were to ask the worldling this question, he would reply that he thinks upon worldly prospects, emoluments, and personal gratifications. But not so the Christian; not so the household of faith. Well, now, if I might simplify this, and put it in the plainest possible manner, I should say that the believer hopes to know more and to enjoy more of Christ to-day than he did yesterday, or than ever he had done before. Faith is the substance of it. The believer in Jesus hopes to be more conformed to the image of Christ; “that as he has borne the image of the earthly, he shall also bear the image of the heavenly.” Faith is the substance of that. The believer in Jesus--the real Christian--hopes to attain to more intimacy with heaven and to have a measure of heaven began in the soul on earth. Let us inquire as regards experimental participation. There is such a thing as the joy of faith. There is such a thing as the triumph of faith. There is such a thing as the race of faith, and it is always a winning race. There are joys experienced in this substance which none but the possessor can know. I hasten on to mark its sanctifying operations. The apostle says concerning this, in his account of the progress of the gospel, as recorded in the Acts of the Apostles, that God “put no difference” between Jews and Gentiles, “purifying”--mark the expression--“purifying their hearts by faith.” That faith that will not purify the heart, is not the substance. It may illumine your head till you are giddy; it may enlighten your understanding till you are as proud as Lucifer; it may inflame your pride as a professor till you are as vain as the devil can wish you to be; but if it does not purify the heart, it is not of God--“purifying their hearts by faith.”
III. I will now proceed to speak of THE WEALTH WHICH THIS FAITH REALISES. It is a substance. Now, most people are ready to travel a good many miles in order to learn how to acquire wealth. They forego much carnal ease to get riches. But, after all, they make a terrible mistake. This is not true wealth. Riches make to themselves wings, they fly away, and defy all control. But the wealth which faith realises is altogether of a different kind. It has no wings. It is not subject to thieves. It cannot be hoarded up and be useless to its possessor; for it is that good principle which works by love. And thus faith realises the inheritance both of grace and of glory, and by it the title deeds to both are clearly read and lodged in the bosom of Deity. Oh, happy man, who goes so far in the attainment of faith! The wealth which faith realises is an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for all who are kept by the power of God through faith. I am not fond of relating anecdotes in the pulpit, but I cannot refrain on the present occasion from telling you one which I heard from my dear father’s lips when I was a boy. It was of a godly man who possessed much wealth, and used it for the glory of God, but who lived to prove that he could not clip its wings. All flew away, and he was reduced to living in a furnished room, where he was supported entirely by the charity of his friends. One of his visitors who had been very kind to him, once asked him this question, “How is it that I find you to be as happy now as when you were in possession of all your wealth?” His immediate answer was, “When I possessed all this world’s goods I enjoyed God in all; and now I possess none I enjoy all in God.” Now that is faith; that is substance; a fine specimen, a fine witness of it. (J. Irons.)
Faith
1. Faith is the confidence--the firm persuasion--of things hoped for. In the ancient games the runner hoped to win the race, to wear the crown of pine or olive leaves around his brow, and to have his name handed down as victor to untold generations; so, in the confidence of this, he strained every nerve and sinew to reach the goal. That was natural faith. The student hopes to win the prize and find his name in the honours list, and he gives his days and nights to reading. The farmer ploughs the land and sows the field, in hope that in due season he shall put in the sickle and gather the harvest. The merchant and tradesman hope to gain a competency or to make a fortune, and put forth their efforts day by day. These are illustrations of natural faith. So it is with the faith that has to do with spiritual things. The Christian sets before him, not the crown of fading leaves, but the crown that shall never fade away, which the Lord will place upon the brow of all who endure unto the end. He seeks for the smile and approbation of the Saviour, for the treasures in heaven, for the bags which wax not old. This is spiritual faith.
2. Faith is the demonstration of things not seen. Columbus believed that there was another world in the western hemisphere; he was as fully assured of its existence as if it had been demonstrated by mathematical proof. Yet he had not seen the new world; he had never looked upon its mighty rivers, or upon the broad expanse of its prairies and savannahs. He had not ever seen in the dim distance the peak of any of its mountains, or the outline of its coast. No navigator had told him, “I have seen the new world; I have cast anchor in its harbours; I have set foot upon it.” Yet, in the full conviction that there was another world, he toiled and waited many years, until his eye rested upon it and he landed on its shores. This was natural faith--the demonstration of things not seen. Some years ago the astronomers, Mr. Adams of Cambridge, and M. Leverries of Paris, were convinced that there must be a large planet that had never been seen through a telescope or marked down in any star-map; so they watched the midnight heavens in a certain direction until the planet came within the range of their glass. This was the way the planet Neptune was discovered. This was natural faith. It is even so with the faith that has to do with spiritual things. God is unseen; His glory is dimly reflected in His works. We see the work of His fingers in the heavens above and on the earth beneath. Creation is a book in which we may read, page after page, His handwriting, His own Divine autograph; but the Almighty Writer is unseen. In the flowers of the field we see the forms of beauty which He has pencilled and coloured and enamelled; the Divine Artist we see not. We stand and gaze with wonder and admiration upon a part of this beautiful temple of creation, but we see not the Divine Architect; yet, as in St. Paul’s Cathedral, we read of the architect, Sir Christopher Wren, “If you seek his monument, look around,” so we see in the skill and wisdom displayed in this glorious creation the monument of the Almighty Builder. We believe that God is, and that He is the Rewarder of them that diligently seek Him. We believe in the great love which He has towards us, which He has revealed in Jesus Christ; that, like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him; that He watches over us by day and by night, that His ear is open to our prayer, His arm stretched out for our defence. We believe that He is present with us in the house of prayer, and we can say with the confidence of Jacob, “Surely the Lord is in this place,” &c. We believe that He has given to us exceeding great and precious promises, that we may be partakers of the Divine nature; and that, although the heaven and the earth pass away, not one of these promises will fail. We believe in an unseen Saviour, &c. (W. Bull, B. A.)
Evangelical faith
I. THE THINGS TOWARDS WHICH FAITH IS DIRECTED ARE INVISIBLE.
II. SOME OF THE INVISIBLE THINGS ARE AT ONCE DESIRABLE AND ATTAINABLE.
III. THOSE INVISIBLE THINGS, WHICH ARE DESIRABLE AND ATTAINABLE, FAITH MAKES POWERFUL IN THE PRESENT LIFE. (Homilist.)
The value and importance of faith
Faith is the source of all truly religious feeling, and the ground of all acceptable service. Without it we can neither come to God nor perform any work which is acceptable to Him.
1. Faith is the condition of justification: “Being justified by faith”; “He that believeth is not condemned; he that believeth not is condemned already.”
2. It is the source of spiritual life: “The just shall live by faith.” “He that believeth hath everlasting life; he that believeth not shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him.”
3. It puts us in possession of every Christian privilege.
(1) The gift of the Spirit: “Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? … In whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy spirit of promise.”
(2) Adoption into the Divine family: “To as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name;” “Ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.”
(3) Peace with God and peace of mind: “Being justified by faith we have peace with God;” “He that believeth shall not make haste.” Joy in God: “In whom, though now ye see Him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.”
4. It is the source of all Christian feeling and action. Our hearts are “purified by faith.” Our prayers to be acceptable must be offered “in faith.” If we would ask successfully, we must “ask in faith, nothing wavering.” (W. Landels, D. D.)
What is faith:
Faith has many workings, many results, many frets--and some select one of these and call it faith itself. But the text goes to the source when it says, “What faith is this.” The word here rendered “substance,” means properly the act of “standing under” so as to support something. Thus in philosophical writings it was applied to the essence which forms, as it were, the substratum of the attributes; that supposed absolute existence (of thing or person) in which all the properties and qualities, so to say, inhere, and have their consistence. In this way the word is once applied in Scripture, in the third verse of this Epistle, to the essence of God Himself, and the Divine Son is said to be “the express image of His person”--the very “impress,” as it might be otherwise rendered, “of His essence.” But there was another use of the word, in which it meant the act of the mind in standing under (so as to support, and bear the weight of) some statement or communication, making, as we say, a heavy demand upon the faculty of believing. It thus passes from the idea of “ substance” into that of “assurance” or “confidence.” It is thus used by St. Paul in two passages of the second Epistle to the Corinthians, where he speaks of his “confidence” in the readiness of their alms-giving, and again of the “confidence of his glorying,” though it be in weakness, about himself. And so, once again, in the third chapter of this Epistle to the Hebrews, we find the expression, “If we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast unto the end.” There can be no question as to the meaning of the word in the verse now before us. “Faith is the assurance of (confidence in) things hoped for.” 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. It is not the Christian only who lives by faith. Faith is no dreamy, imaginative, or mystical thing, which it is fanciful if not fanatical to talk of. The schoolboy who expects a holiday, to be earned by his diligence or forfeited by his misconduct, exercises faith in that expectation the husbandman who expects the harvest is exercising that “confidence in things hoped for” which is faith. The parent who anticipates the manhood of his child is an example of that “walking by faith” which only madmen and fools disparage or dispense with. When Christ bids us to be men of faith, He is not contradicting nature, He is not even introducing into the world a new principle of action; He is only applying a principle as old as Nature herself, to matters beyond and above nature, which it needed a new revelation from the God of nature to disclose and to prove to us. If this proof be given us, it becomes as reasonable to anticipate and to prepare for eternity as it is reasonable to anticipate and to prepare for a holiday or a harvest, a wedding, or a profession. “Faith is confidence in things hoped for”; and whether the expected future be a later day of this life, or a day which shall close this life and usher in an everlasting existence, the principle which takes account of that future is one and the same--only debased or elevated, profaned or consecrated, by the length of the vision and by the character of the object. We must walk by faith if we would not be the scorn and laughingstock of our generation. The only question is, What, for us, are those “things hoped for,” which faith makes its object? Are they the trifles of time, or are they the substances of eternity? Are they the amusements, the vanities, the luxuries, the ambitions, which make up the life of earth--or are they the grand, the satisfying, the everlasting realities which God has revealed to us in His Son Jesus Christ--such as the forgiveness of sins, peace with God, victory over evil, the communion of saints, a growing likeness to Christ, a death full of hope, and a blessed immortality in God’s presence? (Dean Vaughan.)
Faith the substance and evidence:
An unseen and heavenly world is required to correspond to our faith just as much as a material world to correspond to our senses. I stand in the midst of nature on some lovely spring morning. The fragrance of flowers from every bright and waving branch, dressed in pale and crimson, floats to me. The song of matin birds falls on my ear. All this beauty, melody, and richness are the correspondence to my nature of the material world through my senses. Now there are inward perceptions and intuitions just as real as these outward ones, and requiring spiritual realities to correspond with them, just as much as the eye requires the landscape, or as the ear asks for sounds of the winds and woods and streams, for the song of birds, or the dearer accents of the human voice. To meet and answer the very nature of man, a spiritual world, more refined modes of existence, action, happiness, must be, else his nature, satisfied and fed in one direction, and that the lowest, is belied and starved in another direction, and that the highest. But, without illustrating further, in this general way, the rooting of faith in the primary ground of our being, let me show the peculiar light in which the great doctrines and practical influences of religion are brought to us, by thus considering “faith” itself as “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” And first the great doctrine or fact of the being of a God is one of the things that corresponds to our faith, of which faith itself, as a faculty of the soul, is the basis and evidence. We want no other reason for believing in God. Faith itself is the reason, and the best reason. “He that believeth hath the witness in himself.” We need nothing put under our faith to support that, any more than under our direct outward perceptions, our positive knowledge, the dictates of our consciences, or the affections of our hearts, going forth to fix upon their appropriate objects. Like them, it is a radical part of our very constitution--only a part which Christ has come specially to bring out, enrich, and ennoble with the truth he utters, and the actual objects he presents. To the man in whom this principle or sentiment of faith is thus enlivened by meditation, prayer, and the whole stimulus of the gospel, the Supreme One does not appear simply as a first Cause, an original Creator, far back out of our present reach, but as the perpetual Sustainer and Renewer of all things, to whom he joins with the angelic choir of the poet in singing, “Thy works are beautiful as on the first day.” His God is near him, nay, with him; breathes upon him in the freshness of the morning; folds him tenderly in the shades of night, and answers every entreating or confiding desire which he silently ejaculates, with peace, sanctity, assurance that can be felt; “the benediction from these covering heavens falling upon him like dew.” As, sailing in northern latitudes, the needle dips to an unseen power, so his heart inclines to the unseen power of heaven and earth. With an ever-quickening sense of the Divine Being, comes also, through this vitally unfolded power of faith, the feeling of a share in the permanence of that Being; a persuasion, and, so far as in the flesh such a thing can be, realisation of the immortality of the soul. As we believe in the world below because we have senses, and not because somebody attempts logically to prove it to us, so we believe in the world above by the inner perceptions of faith. In fine, the same faith, while convincing us of this durableness of our real life, redeems us from the bondage of death, to which many, all their lifetime, are subject. Thus the apostle declares of Christ, that he “ abolished death.” For just in the degree that, through a religious faith, the feeling of immortality grows in the soul, the death of the body loses power to disturb or alarm it. Principles and affections are developed, on which, we know and are inwardly assured, death cannot lay that icy finger which must chill every flowing drop in the circulation of animal life. The spirit, alive to its relations to God and to all pure beings, is conscious of nothing in common with the grave, has nothing that can be put into the grave save the temporary garment that it wears; and its mounting desires, its ardent love, its swelling hopes, its holy communings, are not stuff woven into the texture of that garment, but are as separable from it as the lamp from its clay vase, as the light of heaven from the clod it for a passing moment illumines. In fact, in this state of inward life, the ideas of the spirit and death, of dust and the soul, cannot be brought together, any more than can the ideas of virtue and colour, thought and material size. (C. A. Bartol.)
Faith, the substance of things hoped for:
It is a certain and evident fact that every one of us is living, every moment, in two worlds: a material world and a spiritual world. All nature, all with which our bodies only have to do is one; all thought and memory and hope, and the inner workings of the mind, all that lies far away out of sight, all beyond the grave, all that concerns other worlds than this, that is the other world. The spiritual world which we cannot see is as real as the material world which is always before us. The power which makes the spiritual world a fact, by which we realise it, is “faith.” And that power is one with which it has pleased God to endow us all for that end. And where that “ faith” is in full exercise, the unseen becomes more real than the seen--for the seen can only be when it is actually present, and must cease with our natural life, while the unseen, though invisible now, will soon be all that we shall see, and will last for ever. Hence, “faith,” which is the sight of the mind, is a far greater thing than the sight of the eyes; for it has to do with the inner nature of a man which he carries with him everywhere, which is always going on: and it takes in, and makes real and present, God and heaven, and all that God hath said and done, or will say and will do; and all the grandnesses of the eternity. It makes “substance” of all these things, and gives “evidence” of our hope that these substances are ours. If I had to define “faith” I should call it a loving trust, a loving, personal approbation, merging into a holy life. But what is the groundwork of faith? what is its warrant? what justifies you in believing all this? God’s voice. How does God’s voice speak to me? Partly in His word, partly in His works, partly in His whisperings to my soul. There are two things which must never be forgotten about “faith.” The one is that though faith is a reasonable and intellectual exercise of the mind, nevertheless it lies more in the heart than in the head. It is not written without a distinct point and sufficient reason, “The evil heart of unbelief.” How can you believe and sin? The belief comes from God only. And the second and most important consideration is that all “faith” is a gift. However much you may read and study and think, you will never obtain faith except by prayer. It lies in the sovereignty of God. (J. Vaughan, M. A.)
Faith a sign of human progress:
Faith is really a sign of human progress. It is the first thing that distinguishes us from the beasts of the field. Let me use an illustration: If there is grass for the ox, the ox feeds; if there be none it dies. It knows nothing of tillage or preparation of the soil for its provender. It knows no future. So, in a measure, is it with the savage. In his rudest state he is only one step above the brute. He hunts for his food, or gathers the wild fruit of the earth. Then take the stage of human life next above this--the simple, wandering, pastoral life. The shepherd or herdsman has to shift his flock from one district to another. He looks forward but a very little. Then comes the agricul
