This is something I have been deeply contemplating in a similar way that I have been exploring other topics on this blog. In this post, I will flesh out what I have learned so far in understanding what faith means and that through this exposition you may gain renewed perspective into the role faith plays in your own life, especially faith in Jesus Christ, the perfecter of faith.
Let’s begin by analyzing the two general ways that faith is understood:
The first is mainly through a secular interpretation - that faith is belief without proof. I think this interpretation completely misunderstands - whether intentionally or ignorantly - the depth of how faith is actually described in the Bible. I hope you will understand why I have such contention with this understanding of faith as we move further along.
The second is mainly through a dogmatic Christian interpretation - that faith is an acceptance of what Jesus Christ has done for us. There is nothing wrong with the acceptance of what Jesus Christ has done for us, but by viewing faith primarily in this lens is like the seed sown on rocky ground that sprang up, then scorched because there is no root. Viewing faith this way in our own lives nullifies the potential impact that faith can have as described in the passage below. There is more to faith than acceptance.
Moving on to the primary passage on faith in the Bible:
“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it the people of old received their commendation. By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.
By faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, through which he was commended as righteous, God commending him by accepting his gifts. And through his faith, though he died, he still speaks.”
Hebrews 11:1-4
The rest of the chapter describes the faith of many others in the Bible.
As stated in the passage, faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.
The assurance of things hoped for is developed by a synergy of feeling and understanding. Feeling initiates things to hope for, understanding refines what is better to hope for and begins the foundation for the feeling of assurance. The importance of feeling is that it simplifies the entirety of our understanding so that we can act because we are limited in both time and understanding. The importance of understanding is that it clarifies how we should act because we will mistakes in of the imperfection in our decisions and feelings. To condense it in more technical terms, the assurance of things hoped for is our presuppositions, it is what we use to orient our lives.
Similar with the previous post, we need to explore our presuppositions - our hope and the assurance of our hope - in an ultimate sense, because I believe the Bible speaks about things ultimately, and regarding faith it is no different.
So what can ultimately be hoped for, and what is ultimately the assurance of that hope? It may be too simple, but as far as I can tell, what we can ultimately hope for is between life or death. Anything else that is hoped for is just hoping in a subset of life or death, and hoping ultimately in any subset is hoping for death without knowing it. So between life and death, which is ultimate to hope for? From a bottom up approach, common sense, probably from our biology and psychology, will have us pursue life. From a top down approach, ultimate death seems contradictory with everything that exists, compared to ultimate life where what exists is part of the process. So ultimately, life, eternal life, is to be hoped for in faith.
As for assurance, I have written about it in my last post, but to summarize: Jesus Christ who was and is the Word of God - the one that structures reality - has demonstrated Himself to be the one that commands life through the many layers of reality because of His death and resurrection. And so our assurance is Jesus Christ, the Word. Often times we tempt ourselves to be the ones that can provide assurance, but ultimately because we will meet our physical deaths, it is futile.
Faith ultimately hopes for eternal life and is assured by Jesus Christ. It is not blind, but in hoping for life and trusting the one whom life is in, how to live becomes clear not through how one’s own limited mind grasps creation, but by one’s experience of the journey that God calls him or her to.
Unlike the first part that describes the orientation of faith, this part describes how unseen things call us to action based on what is hoped for with assurance. To help relate to how we might have these convictions from things unseen, here are some examples to consider: - Thoughts that pop into our head - Our intuitions - Feedback from people - Change in our environment.
From a Christian perspective with the hope of eternal life, the conviction of things unseen is our sensitivity towards God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, through any of the examples previously listed and more. God will call us to action in our lives. The calling itself is not something we usually anticipate, and to determine the results of following through with the conviction is not something we can sense clearly. Moreso, we will probably project a negative outlook because when God calls us, it is always beyond our control and that to obey will demand trust in Him.
God pushes us to take risks, and to add to the difficulty, the responsibility of deciding to pursue His call will fall on ourselves, so it is no wonder why faith is difficult. The reason such drastic risk is pursued is because the vision of life revealed from the assurance of Jesus Christ is so glorious that we are moved to surrender all to him, the Word of God that created the universe. From this assurance we see the commendable faith of the ones described in Hebrews 11.
However, let us not be naive. The convictions of things unseen can also come from things that are not of God. These can be from the principalities and powers that is spoken of by Paul. This is why we must test these things that convict us and be prayerful with the Holy Spirit at all times. We will make mistakes, so let’s be truthful in our confession to each other for the benefit of all.
To put it everything together, faith ultimately is the hope in eternal life assured by the Word of God who came in flesh as Jesus Christ, who calls us to love through convictions that will stretch us beyond what we think we’re capable of, but the hope and life found in Him is so great that our devotion to Him overcomes our fear and anxiety, and so we trust God, not for immediate reward, but for the heavenly one.
With this perspective of faith in mind, let’s reflect in prayer on what faith looks like in our lives.
Current culture tells us to hope for happiness, providing us with efficient ways to gain assurance using our own power to attain it immediately. Our convictions then come from unrestrained impulses of our flesh. Things are viewed as to how it can serve us, a perspective that erodes the values required for things like marriage and raising children.
Brothers and sisters, let’s not fall into the ways of this world. Have true faith, the one only found in Jesus Christ. The one that will move us to love, that will lead us to view how we can serve others, a perspective that takes seriously the responsibility and nobility of marriage and raising children.
Faith is not easy, and I myself frequently fall short in my hope, my assurance and my convictions. But I hope that through what has been covered, you may be encouraged in your own faith and understand more clearly what you are hoping for, what your assurance is and what is convicting you in your life. And better yet, I hope that you find overwhelming meaning and joy in pursuing life that is best lived through faith, a deep devotion to Christ, the Word, so that your story is full of wonder and beauty as God’s workmanship - a blessing for Him and for all.