Hebrews 11:1,2 - Faith is ...

11:1

This is undoubtedly the best known chapter in Hebrews. We do well to look back at what has just gone before,

We do not belong to those who shrink back and are destroyed, but to those who have faith and are saved.

So now he expounds on what it means to have faith. He does so first with some general features of faith, and then begins a long list of examples from throughout the Old Testament of people who lived by faith. Some of these examples do not seem obvious to us. Faith is often shown by the example of someone’s life, by key decisions that they make, rather than correct doctrinal affirmation. THis is not to say that correct doctrine is unimportant, but God does not give us a theology test, but a life test.

“Faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see”. Now there are many sermons, mostly charismatic I guess, that apply this to believing for miracles and the like, but that is not the context here. What has the writer been going on about for the past ten chapters? It is about the all sufficiency of the work of Christ, His perfect sacrifice, His perfect priesthood, His perfect cleansing of our sins. We do not yet see the full outworking of this, for if we look at our own lives we still see sin. But when Christ returns we will be transformed in the twinkling of an eye, the work of transformation has begun, it will be brought to completion. So faith is having assurance of what we do not yet see.

11:2

The “ancients” are the heroes of the Old Testament. There are numerous people in the Bible whom God commends. Why were they commended? Because they had faith, and they were looking forward to a better place. None of them actually received the fullness of what God had promised. Abraham had one son, he did not see the whole world being blessed. Moses was not allowed into the promised land. David was not allowed to build a temple. Daniel was told that many of the things he saw in visions were for a future time. The Old Testament, correctly understood, is a looking forwards.