Renewing the Covenant: What Is Faith?

Hebrews 11:3
Don Garlington | Sunday, November 17, 1996
Copyright © 1996, Don Garlington

Faith is a vital issue, especially to Christians. Yet we live in a world in which the very talk of faith is seen as nonsense and absurdity. We live in a rationalistic age in which, paradoxically, there are those who embrace a sort of irrationality, a kind of leap into the dark, which they call faith. As Christians, we must cling to what really is an alternative between those two positions–the rationalistic and the leap into the dark–and understand that what we believe is very much grounded in reality–indeed, in the creation itself.

What Is Truth?

Faith is the heart and the essence of the covenant relationship. In Hebrews 11 we find perspectives that reach all the way back into the Old Testament that help us understand faith.

What is faith? When we ask that, I am reminded of a similar question which we find in the gospel accounts. Do you remember in the gospel of John when Jesus stood trial before Pilate? Jesus spoke of truth, and Pilate, in all of his cynicism and skepticism, looked at Jesus and asked, “What is truth?” The great irony is that truth was standing right in front of him. Jesus is the way, the truth and the life.

Pilate could ask that question because in his day there were various answers to the question, “What is truth?” For the rationalist, for the scientific philosophers, truth was only what could be seen, heard, smelled, and put in the mouth. To such people, the elements of earth, air, fire and water were all that there was. There is no soul. There was nothing beyond that which was tangible. We gain the impression from the Scripture that Pilate embraced this point of view.

But in the first century there were also what were known as mystery religions. The Dionysian cult, for example, was an outstanding instance of a mystery religion. It included a process whereby one entered into the secrets or mysteries of the deity by stages, until finally you became a full initiate and all of the mysteries of the cult were revealed to you. If we asked someone involved in a mystery religion or a mystery cult, “What is truth?” we would get an irrational kind of answer. The person would say, “We don’t really know what truth is, but we are seeking it. We are attempting to have the divine spark of energy ignited in ourselves, and from there go on in an attempt to determine what the truth is.” It is irrational because there is no ready answer at hand.

Pilate no doubt also knew about the Jewish view of truth. The Jewish alternative said that truth was to be found in the creation because there is a God who is a Creator. Truth links us with the Creator because it is something that we can think about, something we can grasp with our mental faculties. It goes beyond that which can be touched and felt.

What Is Faith?

In the same way, we can pose the question, “What is faith?” And once again there are various alternatives. The rationalistic explanation, for example, says essentially that there is no such thing as faith. A rationalist might say, “If you people want to believe these things, that is fine. If it helps you to get through life, if it is some kind of a balm and salve for the sores of this life, then that is okay. But as for me, I don’t believe that there is any such thing as faith.” Rationalism believes only in what can be seen. To a rationalist, truth is only that which can be demonstrated with the scientific method.

We also have our modern mystery religions, which swing to the opposite end of the spectrum. The New Age movement is essentially Oriental religion and philosophy which has come into the Western world. If you ask New Age adherents what faith is, they will give various answers depending on what aspect of the New Age movement they are into. But again, their definition of faith will be something that is essentially irrational, something that is not really articulated. Over against those two we have the biblical alternative.

There is an irony in asking the question, “What is faith?” because our generation asks that very question. What we have to do is to say that faith comes in the context of trouble and uncertainty, because faith seeks to be something that assures people. Faith gives us assurance, reason to believe, and reason to hope. Yet when we proclaim and attempt to define faith, we say that faith is meaningless apart from a context of trouble and uncertainty. That is the irony of it.

Because of this connection with trouble and uncertainty, the world asks “What is faith?” with a tone of cynicism in its voice. But for us the irony is that the very character of faith is defined by certain things. It is defined by present uncertainty, by trouble, and by the necessity of perseverance until a better time. This is the biblical alternative, meaning that from the beginning of time, from the time of Adam’s fall to the present day, by definition faith presupposes struggle and testing.

Someone may object to this and ask, “What about the first verse of Hebrews 11, ‘Faith is the assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of things not seen’? Doesn’t this connect faith with assurance?” Yes it does, but here we must examine the context of Hebrews.

The Context of Faith

The author of Hebrews was writing to people who were ready to give up because faith was being contradicted by sight. For ages they had been used to seeing the high priest take an animal in hand, slay it as a sacrifice offered upon the altar and pronounce forgiveness of sins on the basis of slaying of the animal. The rivers of blood that flowed throughout the period of the Mosaic era are proof positive that people had become accustomed to a very tangible expression of religion of the forgiveness of sins. Indeed, the old covenant ministered to that dimension of human nature, especially to the flesh.

But these people had embraced Christianity, in which there is a priest who cannot be seen. Christians know that Jesus has offered a sacrifice but they do not see it. Jesus is living at God’s right hand, interceding for every one of us, and yet we cannot see him and have no tangible conception of what he is doing at the present time.

When you look at it from that point of view, doesn’t faith become problematic? If someone asks you, “Why do you believe what you do?” I am sure you would be pressed at times to answer such questions. There are all types of proofs or evidences. Look at the creation. Look at the Scriptures, with all of their harmony and unity, and the fascination they hold for those who study at any depth. We engage in the science of apologetics in attempting to demonstrate that there are reasons for faith. And yet, after you have gone through all of that, people are not convinced, are they? They still want to know why you believe.

You see, our ultimate answer must be, “It is because the Christ is alive, and because his Holy Spirit is not simply an entity or a power, but a living person who resides within the believer.” It is for that reason that we say that we believe these things. But that is not very convincing to those who don’t believe, is it? In fact, it is suspect to unbelievers. And because of this you can understand how people in their skepticism look at high profile people who claim to be Christians and yet live questionable lives and say, “Well, Christians are all hypocrites to begin with. I don’t go to church because the churches are filled with hypocrites,” not taking into account their own various aspects of hypocrisy.

Failing to Enter God’s Rest

The underlying issue in Hebrews, and really the underlying issue for us at times, is the danger of failing to enter in the sabbath rest. These people were in danger of failing to enter into that which is future rest for believers. And so when the writer speaks of faith being “the assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of things not seen,” he is referring to the future, to the inheritance. In fact, the epistle to the Hebrews begins on this note of the inheritance, saying that Jesus sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, which signifies that he entered into his sabbath rest. He is exalted to a position at God’s right hand, and yet his labor is over. And in that very setting Christ is called the heir of all things. In Hebrews 2:5-9, the writer goes on to say that what Adam failed to attain to–the full subduing of the earth–has come under the majestic dominion of Christ. And in the case of Christ, it is not simply the earth which has been subdued, but the universe as well.

The book of Hebrews starts on this futuristic note as it connects with the past. We must realize that we live in a period of overlap between two ages. The old creation starts at a certain point with the fall of Adam and runs up to a certain period of time, and then the new creation begins with the first coming of Christ. But the old does not fall completely away immediately. The two continue to run concurrently and overlap until the old finally falls away at the second coming of Christ and only the future remains.

We are in the period between the already and the not yet. And the recipients of the letter to the Hebrews experienced the already. They had left, as it were, the house of bondage, but they had not come into the land of promise. They found themselves in the wilderness. As people who find themselves in the wilderness sometimes do, they wondered, “What are we doing here in the first place?” Time and again they said of Moses, “You know, this fellow led us out here and now he’s disappeared. We don’t know where he is. For all we know, he has gone back to Egypt and he is having a nice time beside a warm fire somewhere while we are in this stinking desert.” Even though we might not precisely phrase the question in just such terms, haven’t we also wondered, “Is all this worth it? Have we made the right choice to follow Christ? Was our decision right?”

Faith in God and His Promise

The answer is yes, because faith is the assurance that what we have undertaken apart from sight is going to be fulfilled by sight one of these days. Notice that Hebrews 11:3 has the creation as its main point of reference. Do you realize that Adam was expected to have faith even before he fell? In the case of Adam, everything he saw around him was conducive to his faith–the paradise of God, the garden, the earth that he was to subdue to the glory of the Creator and for his own good–everything was rooted in the creation itself.

What happened when Adam fell? He broke the covenant. You see, we may speak of violating the covenant by individual sins, but we don’t break the covenant unless we turn back and forsake the God of the covenant. But that is precisely what Adam did. That sounds startling to some, because some believe that Adam was immediately forgiven and redeemed, and we will see him in heaven. I don’t think so. Why? Paul speaks of two men who head up the whole of human history: the first Adam and the last Adam, who is Jesus Christ. Those who are in the first Adam die, but those who are in the second, or last Adam, shall all be made alive. Adam broke the covenant and fell away. Adam was the first apostate.

Adam was expected to believe in the context of testing. He was being put to the test. He was to subdue and populate the earth, all of which was conducive to his own self-gratification. But when it came to the point where there was a contest of wills between his will and that of the Creator, Adam would not obey. He had been presented with an alternate explanation of reality, and he chose one over the other. He broke faith. He was expected to believe, and yet, at a certain point in time, Adam stopped believing.

What was Adam’s faith supposed to involve? Believing that God would do something bigger and better than what Adam was experiencing at that time. We do not have the time in this study, but one can develop quite a notion of the Sabbath rest. God entered into his rest in Genesis 2:1-2. Then he invited Adam and Eve to fulfill their work and enter into his rest with him. They were not able to do so because of the impossibility of the mandate. But even so, what we call heaven is nothing other than the sabbath rest which has come into its own. That is why the writer of Hebrews said that there remains a sabbath rest for the people of God.

The Struggle of Faith

All of this reintroduces the basic question, “What is faith?” When I was in seminary, the president of the seminary told our class that if we did not know three Latin theological terms for faith, we could not graduate. These terms, used by theologians especially of the seventeenth century, are notitia , assensus and fiducia . Notitia is knowledge, meaning the kind of knowledge one has of an object. Assensus means that one assents to the truth of that object of knowledge. Fiducia is faith or trust in the strict sense of the term.

I want to take issue with that definition, but not because it is wrong. In fact, I am quite sure that it is right. The only problem is that when faith is presented in the Bible, it is not really presented in a way that breaks it down into three categories of knowledge, assent and trust. The Bible presents faith in terms of something which is living and dynamic. We see faith as a struggle, a fight.

Adam was expected to guard the Garden of Eden. When you read the creation account in the Hebrew, you find that the writer uses a verb that means to guard, which implies that there were evil powers trying to intrude themselves upon the creation paradise. Adam failed in the mandate to guard the garden and the forces of evil invaded. Evil is a great mystery, and we do not know why God permits it, but it is permitted. And so the first Adam could not be what he was meant to be because he failed to guard the garden. He failed to exercise a living and dynamic faith.

Faith as found in the Bible is always fluid. There is an ebb and flow to it. Any time you construct a model of biblical theology, you have to let the model breathe. If you have solid, rigid lines, and hermetically sealed containers–one aspect of faith here and another aspect of faith there, and another aspect of faith there–that does not do justice to the dynamic of the language itself. Faith is fluid, and we cannot make a sharp distinction between various aspects of it. All aspects of faith stand together. And instead of three dimensions–knowledge, assent and fiducia–we find there are two things that characterize faith. Where you find the one, you must find the other.

Trust and Faithfulness

The first aspect of faith is what we call faith in the sense of trust. It is trusting in God the Creator, the God of the covenant, and believing that he will do what he says he is going to do and believing that he is able to accomplish what he promises. That is the way that we normally understand faith. But hand in hand with that there is always the notion of faithfulness, meaning if we have faith, we will be faithful at the same time.

Our problems in translating the words for faith is that in Hebrew, and in the Greek as well, there is no one word for faith in the active sense alone, in the sense of trust. The Hebrew word especially stands for a total concept of constancy and firmness, with the root meaning of being firm. To be firm is to be reliable and hold up our end of the covenant. Those who believe in the God of the Bible are always not only exercising what we call faith, but also producing faithfulness.

Therefore, we can speak of faith as being fidelity, constancy, firmness, and confidence, as well as reliance, trust, and belief. Where you find the one aspect, you must always find the other.

The Faith of Abraham

The writer of Hebrews reached back into the Old Testament to present Abraham as an exemplar of faith. If we go back to the Abraham narrative as found in the book of Genesis and examine what the writer of Hebrews says about Abraham, we will see that he follows the chronological sequence of Abraham’s story as found in Genesis 12 and following.

In Hebrews 11:8 we read, “By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going.” The reference is to Genesis 12, which shows us that Abraham’s sojourn of faith began in chapter 12, not chapter 15. In Genesis 12:1-3 God spoke to Abraham, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you, and I will make of you a great nation. And I will bless you and make your name great so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who curses you I will curse, and by you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” There, of course, is the beginning of the Abrahamic covenant.

What was Abraham’s family like before he left them? Were they good, church-going, fundamentalist Christians? No, they were idolaters, as we read in Joshua 24:2. In fact, there is a Jewish tradition that adds to the scriptural account and says that Abraham became so incensed with the idolatry of his father and his family that he burned down their house of idolatry and stomped off to make a new beginning. That is a bit of embellishment but it essentially gives the right picture, because when Abraham was called to leave home, he was called to leave everything behind that he had known–everything familiar, everything that gave him security–friends, family, possessions and all the rest. The reason he was to make such a radical break was because of the idolatry. Abraham’s sojourn of faith from that point onward was to be a new creation.

A New Beginning

It is interesting to notice how the book of Genesis is structured. First there is the creation account. The first man is Adam and he falls. Then God starts over again in the person of Abel, who is slain by his brother, who is of the seed of the serpent rather than the seed of the woman, his own mother. Later on it is Seth, and, of course, the godly line of Seth and the line of Cain merge at a certain point, and this becomes the background for the flood. But then God begins again when he calls Noah. Then he begins again when he calls Abraham.

The ancient rabbinic commentators were able to see that all the way through Genesis there is a series of new beginnings. At one time there was physical chaos in Genesis 1 from which the cosmos emerged when God said, “Let there be light.” But after the fall of Adam, there is a new chaos which engulfs the planet, the chaos of sin–the moral chaos that you and I are very much a part of at the present moment.

When we are converted to Jesus Christ we are told to leave behind our idolatrous past and start again. That can be painful. When people make Christian professions in some cultures, it is as if they have just signed their own death warrants. In some countries, as soon as some people make any kind of Christian profession and are baptized, they are marked. In conservative Jewish homes a mock funeral is sometimes held for those who convert from Judaism to Christianity. And it is especially poignant that in the case of Jewish people who become Christians, the first question put to them is, “Why do you want to forsake your own people? Why would you do that, turn your back on your own family?” Only those who have gone through such an experience can appreciate the force of the temptation to turn back.

By Faith Abraham Left

But Abraham did not turn back. He left home. Now, in those days, when a person left home, he left his whole family relationship behind because in those days everyone lived together. We think it is advantageous for young couples, once they have married, to move out of their parents’ homes and have their own apartment somewhere. But that was not the case in the time of Abraham. And so what Abraham was doing, effectively, was renouncing his family. Yet he was compelled to do so because they were idolaters and he had entered into a new creation.

Have you ever moved away from home? When I was thirty-five, my family left New Jersey to go to England, and we experienced culture shock. We came to understand what it means to be divided by a common language, among other things, as we lived in the north of England where they speak Geordie. We had to strain our ears to understand any conversation. We did not have electric or gas heat. Every day I had to go out to the coal bin, put coal in the scuttle, and carry it to the fire. After we burned the fire in the morning, we had to riddle the thing, get all the hot ash and throw it outside into the ash can. We did that in all kinds of grisly weather. When we finally got a TV, I started watching anything that would remind me of home–things that I never would have watched before. I even watched “The Dukes of Hazzard” because it reminded me of my upbringing in Arkansas. I was grasping for something familiar.

Faith involves the renunciation of that which is familiar and of that which is idolatrous. And from a certain point of view we can define faith as perseverance–perseverance in the covenant relationship with God. Do you remember how the writer of Hebrews was surveying the history of Israel? In Hebrews 3 and 4 he said that the people of Israel failed to enter the land because of their disobedience, and then a couple of verses later he said it was because of their unbelief. Unbelief is disobedience and disobedience is unbelief, because in the Bible, and I would say in Jewish tradition as well, disobedience is not simply breaking some minute aspect of the law. It means to forsake the law, the covenant, and the God of the covenant.

Obedience is the opposite. It means to embrace the covenant and the God of the covenant, in spite of the fact that the God of the covenant sometimes seems to be giving us a pretty rough ride. The life of the covenant can be tough sledding. At times we may even cry out the old rabbinic prayer, “Master of the universe, what are you doing?” because it seems that there is no rhyme or reason to it. But we must persevere in it.

Faith in God’s Promise

At the very beginning of Abraham’s pilgrimage of faith, his obedience in embracing the covenant sets the tone for everything which is to follow. In Genesis 15 Abraham was told that he was going to have an heir, his own child. But then Abraham began to wonder whether that would really happen. Now this is a passage we normally associate with Abraham’s conversion, and especially as we understand Paul in a certain way when he refers to Genesis 15:6 in Romans 4. But it really isn’t, because the writer of Hebrews refers back to Genesis 12 when he says that Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a land which he didn’t know.

We read of the promise of Isaac, Abraham’s seed, in Genesis 15, beginning with verse 1: “After this, the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision: ‘Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your very great reward.’ But Abram said, ‘O Sovereign LORD, what can you give me since I remain childless and the one who will inherit my estate is Eliezer of Damascus?’ And Abram said, ‘You have given me no children; so a servant in my household will be my heir.'” Abraham was becoming very impatient at this point in time, was he not?

You see, we misunderstand Paul when he says at the end of Romans 4 that Abraham hoped against hope if we think that Abraham did not become very anxious at times. He expressed that anxiety, saying to God, “You haven’t given me a thing, and I have no choice but to take a slave and make him as my heir.” But what did God do? “Then the word of the LORD came to him: ‘This man will not be your heir, but a son coming from your own body will be your heir.’ He took him outside and said, ‘Look up at the heavens and count the stars–if indeed you can count them.’ Then he said to him, ‘So shall your offspring be.’ Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness.”

This phrase “to reckon to him as righteousness” was discussed by Dr. Meredith Kline, formerly of Westminster Seminary, in an article in the Westminster Journal . Dr. Kline said the way that we really ought to translate and understand this verse is that Abraham said “Amen” to God’s covenant. “Abraham believed the Lord,” and according to Kline, that should be translated, “Abraham said the ‘Amen’ to God’s covenant.” I agree with Dr. Kline. This is not the first time that Abraham believed, and yet his faith was renewed and therefore, God considered him to be a righteous person because of the renewal of his faith.

Theology of Creation

What did God focus Abraham’s attention upon? It was the same thing that the writer of Hebrews fixes our attention upon–the creation. What was Abraham’s question to God? “You haven’t given me a thing. I am old. My wife is not capable of bearing children.” But God, in essence, said, “Abraham, just step outside for a moment, if you will.” Now, I have never been able to see the stars apart from a certain amount of light pollution. I understand that I would have to go to the remotest reaches of earth in order to see the sky the way that ancient people could. But I can imagine seeing the stars in all of their dazzling glory. And what did God tell Abraham to do? “Start counting.”

What was God saying? First, he wanted to draw Abraham’s attention to the sheer vastness of the creation. Even with the naked eye, even with the light pollution, there are so many stars that we cannot begin to count them. And with the Hubble telescope, we have learned that there are so many galaxies that we could never count them. We can only make rough estimations.

Not only that, just think of what a star is. It is basically a self-generating light. It is not dependent upon anything else for life and sustenance. Rather, it creates life and light. It is not dependent upon any other created entity. You see, there is a theology to be found in the stars. I know this can be carried to an extreme and one man wrote a treatise that called, “The Solar System Spiritualized,” in which he said there was something theologically nuanced about every planet in the solar system. But there is a theology to be found in the stars and heavenly bodies, and in the case of a star, in its particular, self-generating life. And where does a star shine? Against the backdrop of absolute darkness, at least from our perspective. It reminds us of Genesis 1, does it not? As God said, “Let there be light,” and light came flooding into the darkness, the stars in themselves are self-contained symbols and images of the God who is.

So God reasons with Abraham. He was telling him that the One who could make all of the stars was the One who could give him a son. In fact, if God create all that we see around us, it would be a simple thing for that God to create a son even in the case of a man who was old and a woman whose womb had been shut all of her life.

Creation and Faith

Have you ever struggled in your faith? On many occasions, when I have wondered whether I have believed the right thing–whether it is absurdity or the truth–the thing that always brings me back to square one is the creation itself. I know that the creation does not on its own terms prove which God we ought to worship, but it certainly does support the notion that there is a Creator. To think that the world and especially our own bodies and psyches are the products of chance is, as someone has said, to believe that a tornado could come through a junk yard and piece together a 747. It just does not happen. It would be like a bunch of monkeys banging on a word processor and producing “Hamlet.”

Are you struggling in terms of the way the providence of God has been treating you? Let me encourage you, the next time the sky is clear, to go out at night, look up and see how many stars you can count. When you do that, you will realize that the God who made all of that can solve all our problems, and he can do it in such a way as to reassure us that the beginning is a signpost to the end. And you can turn that around and say that the end is a signpost to the beginning.

What does that mean? We speak of eschatology, the study of the last things, in our theological jargon. But in the Bible, when you come to very end, you are sent back to the beginning, because the end is the restoration of the beginning. And so, not only is there an eschatology, but also there is a protology–the doctrine of a beginning–because the beginning and the end match one another.

So when we cannot see the forest for the trees, when we wonder if we have started on the right course to begin, when we watch scientific programs in which the evolutionary point of view is presented with such plausibility and sophistication that we wonder what in the world we are doing, we can go back to the creation itself and think about the magnificence and intricacy of it. And starting with that point we can discern that not only in the beginning did God create the heavens and the earth, but “in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was with God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men” (John 1:1-4). The light is still shining in the darkness, even though the darkness does not apprehend or comprehend it. Despite all the attempts of darkness to extinguish the light, it will never be put out.

If, then, we ask, “What is faith?” we must answer, “It is trust in God.” Yet it is also faithfulness on our part directed to the God who has made all things and the one who has made all things anew in the person of Jesus Christ.

Do You Have Faith?

Do you have faith? Or are you like the rationalists to whom there is no such thing as faith? If you are, then you live a very hollow and shallow existence. You have a one-dimensional existence and cannot begin to comprehend and give an explanation for all the physical phenomena that you encounter day by day, even though you do just that, in a grand state of inconsistency and contradiction.

Maybe you are an irrationalist. Maybe you have flirted with Eastern religion and philosophy, the New Age movement and such. There are a lot of modern celebrities who have bought into the New Age movement. But I pity them. Why? They have everything on a silver platter in front of them in terms of what the world can offer and yet they do not have a clue when it comes to ultimate reality. May we pity them, pray for them and present the gospel to them.

If you do not have faith, I invite you to faith. You may say, “How do I get faith? How do I lay my hands on this entity that you are calling belief and faithfulness?” As ironic as it may seem, you ask for it. You must ask because you are not capable of creating it on your own terms. Faith is the gift of God. When Paul affirms that the whole of our redemption is not of works but rather, it is the gift of God, lest anyone should boast, he is affirming that even faith is God’s gift (Eph. 2:8,9).

Why is faith is appointed as the means of salvation and the forgiveness of sins? Faith restores the relationship of trust which Adam had with the Creator in the beginning. In our own persons we become Adams and Eves–latter day, eschatological Adams and Eves–because of the gift of faith. So we must pray for faith and once we have it, we must pray for perseverance in faith.

We have every reason to believe and to press on, because the beginning points to the end, and in the end we return to the paradise of the beginning. I can think of nothing that is greater, more majestic, and more expansive than that. Amen.