“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”

Hebrews 11:1 KJV

The Greek word here translated “substance” is “hupostasis.” It means foundation, substructure, support. In classical Greek, philosophers used it to mean essence or substance of a thing as distinguished from its attributes. Faith is the ground for our hopes. It is what supports hope and gives it a firm foundation.

So what are the “things hoped for?” The writer of Hebrews goes on to tell us. He describes past champions of faith who were “looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God,¹Hebrews 11:10” “looking for a country of their own,²Hebrews 11:14” “longing for a better country—a heavenly one.³Hebrews 11:16” They wanted a better world, and they hoped to attain to it.

It is a rare and precious thing to hope for a better world and to act in faith on that hope. Those who do so are dissatisfied with the world as it is. They look around and see all the harms people do to one another and to their environment. They see violence and suffering, and they conceive of a world where such things no longer exist, where human relationships are characterized by mutual love and respect, where everyone considers not merely their own well-being and convenience but the good of others and of the whole web of interwoven contingencies that make life good, and they act in ways that best preserve that good life for all. In short, they hope for heaven, where “the wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them,⁴Isaiah 11:6” where “they will neither harm nor destroy.⁵Isaiah 65:25” They hope for a place where “there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain.⁶Revelation 21:4“

Faith is the foundation of this wild and bizarre hope. There is certainly no evidence for it in the natural world. All around we see competition for survival. Cooperation is rare, anything like genuine self-sacrificial love rarer still. Yet faith insists that this future world is somehow attainable and instructs us to pray for it⁷“Your kingdom come.” and work toward achieving it⁸“Love one another.”. While our hope is future oriented, our faith is focused on the present, on the now. How can we best love one another now? How can we best proclaim the hope we have within us to a world hoodwinked by the enemy into thinking that violence is the way to get ahead?

Footnotes

• 1
  Hebrews 11:10
• 2
  Hebrews 11:14
• 3
  Hebrews 11:16
• 4
  Isaiah 11:6
• 5
  Isaiah 65:25
• 6
  Revelation 21:4
• 7
  “Your kingdom come.”
• 8
  “Love one another.”