You know, while we have our preferences . . . and while we can be critical of other versions . . . at the end of the day, we should be thankful that God has raised up men and women who have undertaken to translate the Scriptures from the original languages into languages which are accessible to us. You know it can’t be an easy task. I don’t know very much about the Greek language . . . but I have heard repeatedly that it is a complex and very exact language . . . and that trying to map it into English can kind of be like taking a rainbow and trying to represent it with 3 colored pencils . . . you can get close . . . but some nuances will be hard to represent. This morning, the opening verse of Hebrews 11 has me thinking about trying to represent a rainbow . . .

“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” — Hebrews 11:1

You slow down over that verse and it can strike you as kind of odd that something as seemingly intangible as faith can be equated to being substance. The ESV and NASB say that “faith is the assurance” . . . the NIV, “faith is being sure” . . . the NLT, “faith is the confidence” . . . I’m not gonna lie to you, I prefer the idea that faith is substance.

The Greek word is hupostasis . . . and my handy-dandy online Greek lexicon takes dozens of words to try and give the meaning of it . . . our translators tried to use one. It’s a compound word . . . hupo means “under” . . . stasis means “to place or set” . . . “to set under” . . . or to support. It has the idea of a substructure . . . a foundation . . . apparently used figuratively to speak of something that is of essence . . . . something that is concrete . . . something that provides assurance and confidence . . . it is the substance and reality of something which, of itself, cannot be seen or handled or measured. So faith is the concrete support structure for the hope which cannot be seen.

So how important is faith? Pretty!

“Without faith,” it says, “it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He exists, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.” (11:6)

It was the basis upon which Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice (11:4) . . . the foundation upon which Enoch walked in a way that so pleased God that God directly translated him into heaven apart from death (11:5) . . . the support structure that fueled Noah’s decision to build the ark when it defied all earthly wisdom . . . the basis upon which Abraham ended up “going with knowing” in pursuit of an inheritance God had promised (11:9) . . . the “reality” upon which Sarah received strength to conceive though she was so far past child-bearing years (11:11). This “substance” is the thing that makes the people of God, the people of God.

Faith is the infrastructure upon which we count God faithful to fulfill His promises (11:11) . . . it is the basis on which we embrace those promises and take up a pilgrimage posture and press on toward a city God has said He has prepared for us (11:13-16) . . . it’s what makes this unreal salvation so real.

Faith is the substance of heaven itself . . . try painting that rainbow with 3 colored pencils . . .