Nature of Faith

[Jake for Jesus]

Greetings in Jesus to all.

In the last discussion "Faith and Works," having discussed the relationship between faith and works. I came to think it may would be interesting to discuss now the nature of faith.

Outside the Scriptures I find that the word faith has many different meanings, but in this discussion I am not wanting to discuss those. Within the Scriptures I find that there are two definite, distinguishing features of faith.

Firstly, I find that faith always orginates directly in God's Word; secondly, I find that it is always directly related to God's Word.

Faith is one of the comparatively few words I have found actually defined in the Bible.

In HEBREWS 11:1, I find this definition:

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence

of things not seen.

Moreover, I have discovered that this verse might also be translated:

Now faith is ground, or confidence, of things hoped for, a sure persuasion,

or conviction, concerning things not seen.

I find that this passage brings out some various facts about faith.

Firstly, I see there is a distinction between faith and hope.

Do you see a distinction in that verse between faith and hope?

Does faith differ from hope?

If so? How does it differ?

Respectfully,

Jacob

Edited September 28, 2005 by Jake for Jesus

[Jake for Jesus]

WhySoBlind, thank you for your post!

You appeared to really have put some work into your post.

I agree with what you shared.

Interesting it has been to me that Hebrew 11:1 brings out what I believe to be two important facts. First of all, it indicates a distinction between faith and hope. There are two main ways I discovered in that faith differs from hope. The first in being that hope is directed toward the future which you mentioned. And as for faith is established in the present.

Hope is an attitude of expectancy concerning things that are yet to be, but faith is a substance ---- a confidence, something real and definite within us --- that we possess here and now.

The second main difference I have discovered between faith and hope is anchored in the realm of the mind; faith is anchored in the realm of the heart. I came to see this is very strikingly brought out in saint Paul's description of scriptural armor required by the the Christian soldier.

Paul says:"But let us who are of the day be sober, putting on the breastplate

of faith and love, and as a helmet the hope of salvation" (1 Thessalonians 5:8).

Notice that faith --- togather with love ---- is found in the region of the breast; that is. the region of the heart. But hope is pictured as a helmet, in the region of the head, or mind. This, hope is a mental attitude of expectancy concerning the future; faith is a condition of the heart, producing within us here and now something so real that it can be described by the word substance.

In Romans 10:10 Paul again directly assoicates the heart with the exercise of faith, or believing: "With the heart one believers unto [literally, into] righteousness." (The Greek preposition used here is eis, which is regularly translated "into")

I discovered that many people make a profession of faith in Christ and the Bible, but their faith is only in the realm of the mind. It is an intellectual acceptance of certain facts and doctrines. This is not true, scriptural faith, and it does not produce any vital change in the lives of those who profess it.

On the other hand, heart faith always produces a definite change in those who profess it. When assoicated with the heart, the verb "to believe" becomes a verb of motion. Hence Paul says, "With the heart one believes [into] righteousness" ---- not merely "unto righteousness," but "into righteousness," merely as an abstract theory. That is, to believe in a way that produces a tranformation of habits, character and life.

In the words of Christ, the verb phrase "to believe" is regularly followed by the preposition "into," to express change or motion. For instance, He says: "You believe in [literally, into] God, believe also in [literally, into] Me" (John 14:1).

This brings out the fact that the verb phrase "to believe" is assoiated with a process of change or motion. It is not enough to believe "in" Christ with a mere mental acceptance of the facts of His life or the truths of His teaching. We must believe "into" Christ --- we must be moved by heartfelt faith out of ourselves and into Christ, out of our sin and into His righteousness, out of our weakness and into His power, out of our failure and into His victory, out of our limitations and into His omnipotence. This scriptural faith faith of the heart always produces change. It is always believing into Christ and into His righteousness; and the result is always sometiung definite, experienced here and now, not something merely hoped for in the future.

For the reason, I discovered in John 6:47 Christ uses the present and that the future tense. He says, "He who believes . . . has everlasting life" --- not shall have, but already has, everlasting life. Scripture faith into Christ produces everlasting life here and now within the believer. It is not something that we hope to have in the next world after death. It is something that we already possess, something that we already enjoy, a reality, a substance within us.

So many people have a religion which they hope will somehow do them good when they reach the threshold of eternity. But true Bible faith gives the believer a here-and-now experience and assurance of everlasting life already within him. His faith is a real substance within him. Because of this present faith he also has a serene hope, a sure confidence concerning the future. A hope that is based on this kind of faith will stand the test of death and eternity; but a hope that lacks this present substance of faith is mere wishful thinking, doomed to final, bitter disillusionment.

Respectfully,

Jacob

Edited September 29, 2005 by Jake for Jesus

[Jake for Jesus]

mark l malone wrote:

while the words obviously have different meanings, they are JOINED TOGETHER AS ONE, in this verse.

My Response:

Maybe you misread.

I don't see that any one has said that faith and hope aren't closely related.

Just to further discussion. That is, if you agree with the definition given already for the definition of faith in Hebrews 11:1. Do you see another important fact about faith in Hebrew 11:1 that has yet to be mentioned?

Edited September 29, 2005 by Jake for Jesus

[ted]

Simply put:

Our Faith is ground zero for our hopes. Without the Faith in God and His Blessed plan of Salvation, we have no hope, whether the word is used as a noun or verb.

Our Faith in God, based on Scripture, is what we base our Hope in. Our Faith is based on what is revealed to us in the Word, in reference to what is already revealed to us. Our Hope springs from that well, and gives us reason to believe that we can rest assured that things to come will come as described in Scripture. This, IMO, is the Hope that we speak of.

One important verse again come to mind (oddly, this is the second time this morning that I have used this verse, so I put it in my sig line):

Deu 29:29 The secret things belong unto the LORD our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.

Some things are secret and known only to God, therefore, we must have hope in His will, and not rely on what we may think to be true. We have enough from His word to form our Faith, which gives us our hope of things to come.

Therein lies the difference, as I understand it, between the two.

Great topic!

t.

[Jake for Jesus]

Ted, this will let you know that I read your post!

Thank you, for your interest in this topic of our discussion, and for your post.

I will gave give my answer to the question I had asked Mark in my last post.

Let us turn back now to the definition of faith given in Hebrews 11:1 and note one other important fact about faith. Faith is "the evidence of things not seen," or a sure conviction concerning things not seen. This shows that faith deals with things not seen. Therefore we know that Faith is not based on the evidence of our physical senses but on the eternal , invisible truths and realities revealed by God's Word.

I find that saint Paul brings out this contrast between the objects of faith and the objects of sense perception when he says, "For we walk by faith, not by sight" (2 Corinthians 5:7). In this passage I came to see that faith is contrasted with sight. Sight, along with the other phyiscal senses, being related to objects of the physical world. Faith being related to the truths revealed in God's Word which are invisible, eternal and unchanging. However, if we were carnally minded, we would accept only that which our senses reveal to us. But if we are spiritually minded, our faith makes the truths of God's Word more real than anything which our senses may reveal to us. We do not base our faith on that which we see or experience; we base our faith on God's Word. Thereafter, that which we see or experience is the outcome of that we have already believed. Therefore we know that biblical Christian faith, is based solely on God's Word.

Just to help further our discussion, I am now going to ask a question.

If you can accept what I have been sharing with you, we should come to be able to see that in spiritual experience sight comes after faith, not before it.

Can you give us any spiritual examples of this in scripture?

Be blessed, brother.

Jacob

Edited October 1, 2005 by Jake for Jesus