There are words we use so commonly that we barely stop to think about their origins. For example, did you know that the word “salary” comes from salarium in Latin, which means “salt money?” So each time you receive your salary, it is the salt that you are worth that you are receiving. Studying the etymology of a word can reveal something latent and significant in why the word is used. So it is with “faith”. And, what does the Bible say about faith?
Perhaps the clearest place where faith is described is in Hebrews 11:1: “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” My translation renders it, “Faith is the reality of things hoped for, the proof of things unseen.”
This leads us to extract two conclusions about what faith is.
The Genesis of Faith
1. Faith is the “stuff” of hope. Faith has arrived from a future hoped-for time; it has intruded into the Christian’s present experience. Thus, it has a gravitational pull towards all that makes up Christian hope—think life with Christ after death, the promise of a new creation, freedom from sin, and the tyranny of suffering.
2. Faith serves as proof of the unseen. Contrary to the naturalist materialist, who restricts faith to seen realities, the Christian has faith in realities unseen. On the other hand, contrary to the panentheist, who believes one ought to believe in oneself because God and the self are indistinguishable consciousnesses, the Christian believes in objectively true realities beyond oneself. In fact, faith comes from the unseen realm and is seen and evidenced in the realm the Christian inhabits.
Thus, faith is of the stuff of future hope that has invaded the present, originating from an unseen realm that evidences itself in the life of the Christian.
The Pull of Faith
Have you wondered what gravity is? Our answers are usually a variation of the force that draws us to the Earth’s centre. One might say, gravity is what gravity does. Just as gravity is known by its effects, faith is known by the direction it pulls the believer.
The Pull Includes Good Works
Faith—arriving from the coming kingdom and the unseen realm—works itself out. The Protestants have been very careful to distinguish faith from our works to protect the doctrine of grace. The Roman Catholic Church would assert that faith cannot exist without works, in the sense that works and faith are in the root, trunk, and branches of a tree. The Protestant, however, asserts that, indeed, faith cannot exist without works, in the sense that faith is the root and good works its fruit (James 2:26).
A faith that exercises itself by performing good works is the kind that saves.
The Pull Includes Gratitude
This distinction of the root of faith and the fruit of good works is important for two reasons:
First, we can give thanks to God for the gift of faith (Eph. 2:8). While our faith is often attacked by our unbelief, which assaults it and sometimes weakens it. It will prevail against all attacks in the end (Heb. 10:23). Praise God!
Second, so we can give thanks to God for our good works. We perform good works through the enabling of the Spirit, which, sadly, can be mixed with our unbelief. (The Lord finds “no one righteous” on earth in Psalm 143:2, which includes believers who work out their salvation.)
A Christian trusts, and trust is an interpersonal bond. The Christian cannot be satisfied with empty mantras such as “just believe.”
A faith that exercises itself by performing good works is the kind that saves (James 2:18). Faith can be distinguished from its fruit, called works, but it cannot be separated from them. Article 14 of the First Helvetic Confession (1536) concludes its summary on faith, “faith, without confidence in works, this is the most fruitful of works.” If faith is not to look first to its own fruit for validation, where must its trust be found?
A Relational Trust
This faith, which comes from an invisible, futuristic realm, is a trusting one. A Christian trusts, and trust is an interpersonal bond (Jer. 17:7-8). The Christian cannot be satisfied with empty mantras such as “just believe.” Since faith is an interpersonal commodity, “believe in the universe” does not make sense theologically.
The Christian trusts in the God who has revealed himself through Scripture (Luke 24:27). He trusts in the Father through Jesus by the Spirit. Hebrews 11:6 says that without the kind of faith we have just discussed, it is impossible to please God.
How does one please God? By drawing near to God (Heb. 11:6). Logically speaking, in order to draw near to God, we must believe that:
Firstly, God “exists” because no one is attracted by things that do not exist and shape their lives according to them.
Secondly, God is trustworthy to reward those who trust in him. God is able to carry out the right judgment—rewarding those who trust and punishing the wicked who go without trusting—which requires an internally perfect moral compass.
Thus, true faith enables us to trust in the triune God. Our God is perfectly righteous and will judge the world through Jesus, the King of kings, upon his return (2 Tim. 4:1). Thus, faith gravitates the Christian toward the unseen God, revealed in the historic Jesus, who will come again, a time that we hope for.
The Early Gift
In conclusion, Article 14 of the First Helvetic Confession (1536) summarises our discussion beautifully, “This sure and undoubted [saving] faith is the substance and apprehension of all things hoped for from the goodness of God.” Combine this with the truth that faith is a gift of God (Eph. 2:8), and we get the awesome reality that faith is an early gift from the package labelled “things hoped for.” Thus, this early gift contains within it the content ( or “substance”) of “things hoped for” and seizing (apprehension) of “things hoped for.”
The early gift of faith from the future realm of “things unseen,” where our “things hoped for” reside, keeps us moving forward through our earthly pilgrimage toward the new creation that Jesus will bring down from heaven at his return.
So, would you pause and thank God for sending us Jesus and giving his Spirit to live in us? Thank God for the gift of faith that gravitates us to God with a forward momentum. Without such a faith, we would be lost in our sin and misery forever.
