What faith does

What really pleases God, Hebrews 10:38, is his “righteous ones living by faith” (or “thriving on faith” as one translation phrases it), his reason being, verse 39, that “those who believe are saved.” In other words, those with faith get to experience what faith does in its saving power – with clues coming up in chapter 11 as to what that saving power of faith did in the lives of “the ancients who were commended for it” (11:2).

They were commended, as we are, for believing – or living by faith – in two things: the first one in Hebrews 10:36, “that when we’ve done the will of God we will receive what he promised.” And the second in verse 23, that we “hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful.” So, in defining faith as “being sure of what we hope for and being certain of what do not see” in Hebrews 11:1, it’s being “sure” and “certain” in both what God promises, and in his absolute faithfulness in making his promises happen.

And the first hint we’re given in Hebrews 11 as to what that faith does for us, is in verse 3, that “By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command.” For us it’s no problem accepting that God spoke our world into existence, or that “By the word of the Lord were the heavens made, their starry host by the breath of his mouth. For he spoke and it came to be; he commanded, and it stood firm” (Psalm 33:6, 9). So here’s what faith in its saving power does: it saves us from trying to figure out how the universe began. It’s simple: God spoke its beginning.   

And continuing in Hebrews 11:3, “what we now see (in our universe) did not come from anything that can be seen.” Which makes sense, because if the universe came from stuff we can see, then where did that stuff come from? It had to come from something that had always existed. So again, here’s what faith in its saving power does: it handily saves us from trying to figure out how the universe came into existence from nothing – when we see It didn’t come from nothing; it came from an eternally existing God “appointing his Son as heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe” – who now “sustains all things by his word” too (1:2-3). So God not only spoke our world into existence, he speaks it into continuing existence too.

We’re very fortunate, then, in not being stuck with just the visible. Faith, instead, has opened up the invisible to us as well. Or as Hebrews puts it, “We see through the curtain”….(next blog)