Verse 1
Essentially faith is confidence that things yet future and unseen will happen as God has revealed they will. This is the basic nature of faith. Hebrews 11:1 describes faith rather than defining it.
"This word hypostasis ["assurance," NASB] has appeared twice already in the epistle. In Ch. Hebrews 1:3 the Son was stated to be the very image of God’s hypostasis; in Ch. Hebrews 3:14 believers are said to be Christ’s associates if they hold fast the beginning of their hypostasis firm to the end. In the former place it has the objective sense of ’substance’ or ’real essence’ (as opposed to what merely seems to be so). In the latter place it has the subjective sense of ’confidence’ or ’assurance.’ Here it is natural to take it in the same subjective sense as it bears in Ch. Hebrews 3:14, and so ARV and RSV render it ’assurance.’" [Note: Bruce, The Epistle . . ., p. 278.]
"Faith is the basis, the substructure (hypostasis means lit. ’that which stands under’) of all that the Christian life means, all that the Christian hopes for." [Note: Morris, p. 113.]
". . . faith celebrates now the reality of the future blessings that constitute the objective content of hope." [Note: Lane, Hebrews 9-13, p. 328.]
Someone else described faith as the spiritual organ that enables a person to perceive the invisible realities of life.
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