True Faith Tastes Future Joy

What I hope to show you from the book of Hebrews is this:

• If you have ever dreamed of having a faith that is so real you would be willing to have all of your possessions unjustly confiscated in the service of Christ and actually be able to rejoice in it,
• or if you have ever dreamed of having such an authentic faith that you would be able to choose against wealth and comfort and security in order to serve God’s people faithfully for forty years and do it joyfully,
• or if you’ve ever dreamed of having a faith so powerful that you would be able to give your life to save others, and do it with joy,

then take heart: The pathway to your dreams is in this book and in what I am about to show you about the nature of saving faith.

I invite you to turn to chapter 11 of Hebrews. I am going to drill down into the meaning of the first verse, especially the first half of the verse. And then I will try to confirm that meaning by showing how it gets worked out in the book of Hebrews in three real-life experiences of faith as it produces joyful, sacrificial love. We’ll look at Jesus in Hebrews 12:2, Moses in 11:24–27, and the early church in 10:32–34. And we will see how each of them lives out the meaning of faith from Hebrews 11:1.

Now faith is the assurance [or substance, hypostasis] of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

The old King James Version translates verse 1 as “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for.” Virtually all the modern translations translate it as “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for.”

Substance Versus Assurance

Here are three preliminary arguments for substance (or essence, or nature).

First, the word hypostasis is used two other times in the book of Hebrews. In Hebrews 1:3 we read, “[Christ] is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature (hypostaseōs).” In Hebrews 3:14 it says, “We have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence (hypostaseōs) firm to the end.” In the other two New Testament occurrences of hypostasis outside of Hebrews, they appear to mean confidence or assurance, as Paul uses the word in 2 Corinthians 9:4 and 11:17.

And my question for the author is this: Why didn’t you use the ordinary words for assurance and confidence, like plērophoria (6:11; 10:22) or parrēsia (3:6; 4:16; 10:19; 10:35)? They don’t carry any of the freight that hypostasis does — the sense of substance or essence or nature. So, that’s my first argument: Since he had other words for assurance that he could’ve used, and he chose this loaded one, he wants us to think about the load.

The second argument is almost the same. Since you began your book with one of the most glorious, explosive paragraphs about the nature of Jesus (1:1–3), and you said there that he was the imprint of the substance (the nature, the essence, the hypostasis) of God, surely you knew that we would hear this word in 11:1 in the light of that first powerful usage in the third verse of the book. And I think he would say, “Yes, I did know that, and that’s exactly what I want you to do. I want you to think of faith as the substance, the essence, the nature, of things hoped for.”

And that’s my third argument. He chooses the word hypostasis (not plērophoria or parrēsia) because he wants us to see that faith is the act of the human heart by which the hoped-for future reality becomes in some measure substantially present. This is what faith is. It is the present experience of that substance (or nature, or essence, or reality) of the thing hoped for. Faith tastes it. Faith is the present realization — or, if it were a word, we could say substantialization — of that hoped-for reality. In faith, that hoped-for reality becomes substantial. Something in the very nature of the hoped-for reality is experienced, sensed, tasted in faith.

Those are my three reasons for translating Hebrews 11:1 as “Faith is the [substance] of things hoped for.” That third reason is going to be demonstrated in the examples of Jesus and Moses and the early church. I don’t worry too much about the controversy over assurance versus substance, because I think if you translate it as “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for,” and you push to the bottom of the reality of what assurance is, you’re going to wind up in the same place. How does faith become sure in the book of Hebrews? It sees, it knows, it tastes, it experiences things hoped for. That’s what we’re going to see.

Before we look at Jesus and Moses and the early church, here’s one more preliminary comment. I’m only talking about one dimension or aspect of faith, not all of them. Faith in the New Testament, and even in Hebrews, is a many-splendored thing. There’s more to say about faith than what I am saying. But I do think this dimension is very important, especially because of its relationship to obedience, and is often neglected.

So, let’s see how this understanding of faith is confirmed in the experience of Jesus, Moses, and the early church.

Jesus: A Realized Joy

The writer has just given in chapter 11 a litany of illustrations from the Old Testament of how to live “by faith.” The phrase “by faith” occurs nineteen times in Hebrews 11: “By faith Abraham obeyed” (11:8), and eighteen more such uses. Now, in Hebrews 12:1–2, the writer adds one more illustration of how to run the race with endurance “by faith” — namely, the illustration of Jesus.

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. (Hebrews 12:1–2)

So, he calls Jesus “the founder and perfecter” of our faith. And that “founding” includes not only Jesus’s role as foundation, but also his role as illustration. He not only secured our finishing the race victoriously (“[saved] to the uttermost,” 7:25); he has also run the race before us to show us how to do it.

“How does faith become sure in the book of Hebrews? It sees, it knows, it tastes, it experiences things hoped for.”

The writer tells us to look “to Jesus” (12:2). Specifically, what he wants us to look at is the way Jesus “endured the cross” — namely, “for the joy that was set before him.” The writer had said nineteen times, “by faith” these Old Testament saints obeyed, often at great cost. And now in this climactic illustration of obedience, instead of saying Jesus endured the cross by faith, he says he endured it “for the joy that was set before him.” Jesus saw the future joy. He saw the thing hoped for. (Are you with me? Hebrews 11:1.) And he tasted it. And it was so real, so substantial, so precious, that it sustained him all the way through the agony to glory.

If you said to Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane, “Jesus, do you have joy?” I think he would’ve said through his bloody tears and his agony, “I can see it. I can taste it. It’s so real, so substantial. It’s going to get me through.” This future, hoped-for joy at the Father’s right hand had present, obedience-sustaining substance, power, because “faith is the substance [now] of things hoped for [then].”

This substance of the joy hoped for was not merely future. It was realized (made real!) in the present. Faith is the present experience of the substance of things hoped for. This is how a hoped-for joy becomes a mighty force of love in the present. No greater act of love was ever performed than when Jesus “endured the cross” to save his enemies. And he was able to do it because the joy set before him had present substance, reality, obedience-sustaining power.

So, if we ask at this point, “What is faith?” I think the answer would go something like this: Faith embraces a hoped-for joy, and that joy becomes a substantial element of faith because faith is the substance of things hoped for. It doesn’t just look at the substance. It is the substance. It partakes of the substance. The joy that is set before us in the promises of God becomes present and substantial in our faith.

When we turn now to the illustration of Moses, we will see that the future joy is in fact the joy of treasuring Christ himself.

Moses: Looking to the Messiah

Let’s read Hebrews 11:24–27. Notice that in verses 24 and 27 it says “by faith” he acted. So, what we’re reading here is a description of how faith actually works in the life of a person to enable him to make sacrifices for the good of others. This is a picture of how faith becomes the substance of things hoped for and then empowers love.

By faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward. By faith he left Egypt, not being afraid of the anger of the king, for he endured as seeing him who is invisible.

Moses did three things “by faith.” (1) By faith he “refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter” (verse 24). (2) By faith he chose to be mistreated with God’s people, instead of having Egypt’s fleeting pleasures of sin (verse 25). (3) By faith he considered reproach for Christ worth more than the treasures of Egypt (verse 26).

Those three sacrifices (renunciation of Pharaoh’s court, choosing mistreatment over fleeting pleasures, valuing the Messiah over the treasures of Egypt) — they correspond to Jesus’s enduring the cross in Hebrews 12:2. Then comes the explanation for how Moses did this “by faith.” Verse 26: “For he was looking to the reward.” This corresponds to Jesus’s looking to “the joy that was set before him.”

When it says Moses looked to the reward, it does not mean he looked and saw nothing of substance. The very next verse (verse 27) says, “By faith he left Egypt . . . as seeing him who is invisible.” He did not just look. He saw. And what he saw was the Messiah (tou Christou, Hebrews 11:26). And this hoped-for Messiah was the reward — a greater treasure than all the treasures of Egypt. What he saw was so real in the promises of God that we may say Moses’s faith became the substance of things hoped for. His present experience was the tasting of the joy of the reward of the Messiah. And that taste, that present experience, was faith. It was the present substance of the hoped-for future pleasures at the Messiah’s right hand, far better than the fleeting pleasures of Egypt.

And the power that this faith exerted was enormous and transformative. In the same way that Jesus, for the joy set before him, endured the cross, Moses, for the joy set before him, renounced the privileges of Pharaoh’s court, spurned the fleeting pleasures of Egypt, and chose the reproach of Christ to serve God’s people.

The Early Church: A Better Possession

Here is one more example of how faith becomes the substance of things hoped for, and empowers love.

Recall the former days when, after you were enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings, sometimes being publicly exposed to reproach and affliction, and sometimes being partners with those so treated. For you had compassion on those in prison, and you joyfully (meta charas) accepted the plundering of your property, since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one. Therefore do not throw away your confidence (parrēsian), which has a great reward. (Hebrews 10:32–35)

Like Moses in Hebrews 11:24–27 and like Jesus in Hebrews 12:1–2, the early Christians of Hebrews 10:34 are able to endure suffering because they look to the “better possession and . . . abiding one.” Jesus looked to the joy set before him (12:2). Moses looked to the “reward” (11:26). The Christians look to a future that is better and eternal. Hebrews 10:35 calls it “a great reward.”

How did these “things hoped for” become real, substantial, and so powerfully effective in their present experience? How could these Christians not only risk the loss of their property in showing compassion to imprisoned believers, but actually lose their property?

The answer is this: The experience of joy released them from fear and selfishness, and compelled them to visit the prisons at the peril of their lives and property. (Verse 34: “You joyfully accepted the plundering of your property.”) And what was that joy? Where did it come from? It was the substance of things hoped for (11:1). The source of their sacrificial love was this: “since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one” (10:34) — “things hoped for,” just like Jesus, just like Moses (11:1). And this joyful future flowed back into the present and became real, substantial, powerfully effective. And Hebrews calls that experience “faith” — the substance of things hoped for.

Present Participation in Joy

I conclude from these three passages in Hebrews (12:2 about Jesus; 11:24–27 about Moses; 10:32–35 about the early church) that they are all describing the experience of faith. They are all illustrating Hebrews 11:1, what it means that “faith is the [substance] of things hoped for.” They are all showing that faith is the present participation in the joy hoped for, the treasure hoped for, the reward and better possession hoped for, the Messiah hoped for. Therefore, faith tastes the joy hoped for. Faith treasures the treasure hoped for. Faith cherishes the reward, the better possession.

This is why it is so powerful to enable Christians to suffer, even joyfully. This is why Hebrews 11:35–39 can say,

[By faith] some were tortured, refusing to accept release, so that they might rise again to a better life. Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword. They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated — of whom the world was not worthy — . . . all these [were] commended through their faith.

Tortured by faith. Flogged by faith. Chains and imprisonment by faith. Sawn in two by faith. What does that mean? It means “by the present experience of the substance of things hoped for.” It means they tasted the reality of the joy of God’s presence and it was such a powerful, substantial reality that they would suffer anything for him. And that experience of the powerful, present, substance of things hoped for is called faith.

So, I close where I began:

• If you have ever dreamed of having a faith that is so real you would be willing to have all of your possessions unjustly confiscated in the service of Christ and actually be able to rejoice in it,
• or if you have ever dreamed of having such an authentic faith that you would be able to choose against wealth and comfort and security in order to serve God’s people faithfully for forty years and do it joyfully,
• or if you’ve ever dreamed of having a faith so powerful that you would be able to give your life to save others, and do it with joy,

the answer to your dreams is here. Faith is the substance of things hoped for.