Faith and Righteousness: A Meditation on Hebrews 11 for the 9th Sunday after Pentecost

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for,

the evidence of things not seen.

For by it the elders obtained a good report.

Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God,

so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.

By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain,

by which he obtained witness that he was righteous,

God testifying of his gifts: and by it he being dead yet speaketh.

 By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death;

and was not found, because God had translated him:

for before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God.

But without faith it is impossible to please him:

for he that cometh to God must believe that he is,

and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.

 

It is easy, I think, to consider faith only as an abstraction.  It might seem as if faith is a matter only of the individual conscience or a meditation of the individual mind, bound only to the shifting considerations or values which people assign to them.  Yet Scripture presents a different image of faith, particularly in regard to the true and living God:  faith in Him is imputed as righteousness to those who believe in Him.  Far from an individual abstraction of passing whimsy, the faith St. Paul elucidates from the Old Testament Scriptures in his letter to the Hebrews is one that lives, trusts, and walks according to the promises of God.  Abel trusted God, and his testimony of the blood sacrifice forever echoes as a foreshadowing of the Cross of Christ, even though Abel has been dead and buried since time immemorial.  Similarly with Enoch, who walked with God in faith and one day was simply translated into God’s Kingdom, leaving behind the ancient testimony that God found Enoch’s faith pleasing in His sight.  This kind of faith is not simply an individual exercise without external consequence, but a living relationship with God by His Eternal Word that unites the individual with their Maker, and through Him to all those who put their trust in Him.  The Kingdom of God is built together and united by the faith of those who trust in Him to be their Savior, creating the reality not only of our individual salvation, but of our unity as the redeemed People of God.

 

Thus it is not surprising that Paul would write, Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.  Faith is more than a human idea, but a reality created by the Word of God.  The testimony of Abel’s faith differs from that of Cain who slew him, because Abel trusted in the Word of God which foreshadowed the coming of the Messiah, and Cain tried to approach God on his own terms—or perhaps said differently, Abel trusted in God’s Word, and Cain trusted in his own.  In turn, Abel’s witness endured by the power of the living God’s Promise even after he was slain, while Cain’s witness was cemented in judgment according God’s Law.  The Word of God governed them both, but only by faith did the one receive grace which transcended death, while the other received condemnation despite the continuance of his cursed life in this world.  Likewise with Enoch who walked with God while the whole world was falling into the depravity which soon would prompt the universal deluge and Noah’s building of the ark.  Enoch’s faith received grace from his saving Lord and eternal life in God’s Kingdom, while the unbelief of the world received wrath under the judgment of God’s Law.  Unlike human words and ideas that flit into or out of our minds every day, the Word of the Lord endures forever, and His ideas frame the whole of reality.  We will either live in that Word by faith, or we will perish under that Word by unbelief, for there is nothing more real and consequential to our very existence as rational beings, and of the whole creation, than the Word of the Living God.

 

It is therefore necessary that we understand what faith is, as it is the only means by which the Lord is pleased with us, and through which He imputes to us His righteousness.  Such faith cannot be a human work begun in the human mind, because the fallen minds of men cannot in their depravity ascend to the King of the Universe.  Our thoughts, our words, and the deeds which follow from them, originate in our fallen nature which seems adept only in corruption and evil.  Any faith generated solely from inside ourselves will be disordered and misplaced, either creating pagan idols of the natural order around us, developing vain philosophies of aggrandizement and despair, or attempting to deify ourselves in some selfish quest for money, fame, power, or pleasure.  For faith to be saving and unite us to God, it must first come to us from God, which is precisely why God speaks His Word to us in the first place.  The Word, will, and thought of God presses toward us and into our corrupted minds, giving us something far greater to trust in than we could ever develop on our own.  His Word teaches us where we come from, how we’ve fallen, the righteousness we cannot attain by our own powers, and the promise of salvation made to us by the life, death, and resurrection of His Only Begotten Son.  His Word comes to us as the Way, the Truth, and the Life which only He can provide, and which we can only hope to receive as the free gift of His saving love for us.  This Word of Law of Gospel creates in us the only kind of faith that can transform a condemned sinner into a child of God; a faith which repents before the revelation of our unrighteousness, lives by trusting in His promise of forgiveness and eternal life, that He might impute to us the saving righteousness of Jesus Christ.

 

Far from faith as a work or action or contemplation on the part of sinful men, faith is revealed as a work of God alone through His Eternal Word.  The ability to receive that Word and trust in it is an effect of the Holy Spirit working through that Word, which reconciles sinful people to the Father.  Thus even as faith declares the reality of the Holy Trinity, it is the Holy Trinity which is revealed as the source and summit of our faith:  The Father as the Creator of all things, seen and unseen; the Son, though Whom all things were made; the Spirit, the giver of life, who proceeding from the Father and the Son, testifies and draws all men into that blessed Trinitarian fellowship.  This One God in Three Persons, undivided and unconfused, is the sole source, means, and surety of saving faith, through which alone we receive grace and mercy and eternal life.  Here is reconciled the tandem truth that the just shall live by faith, and that by faith we are justified in His sight.  For we know that by the works of the Law no flesh shall be justified in His sight, and that if grace is received as the wages of human works, it is no longer grace, and the Cross of Christ is made meaningless.  Such revelation might seem like folly to a fallen and finite mind which cannot perceive how faith in God originates from outside himself, but the reality revealed in Christ alone is that only by an alien faith which produces an alien righteousness, can we be saved by an alien grace so rich and free.  Only our saving God could conceive such a thing to make it an eternal reality, and only He could bring such salvation to us by the power of His Eternal Word.

 

If today you have lamented your lack of faith, or the weakness of your mind and heart and will to build an enduring bridge of fellowship with your Maker, be of good cheer:  for God Himself has accomplished what you could not, so that you might have what you could never earn, and live as you could never imagine possible.  In Christ alone is the salvation of the world accomplished, that by Christ alone all might hear the Gospel of redemption, and faith would come by hearing the Word of God—not by the power of human hearing or the charisma of human preaching, but by the omnipotent power of the Holy Spirit, reconciling the world to the Father through the Son.  Hear His Word to you this day, that today and everyday unto ages of ages, you may live in Him by grace through faith in Christ alone.  Amen.