Expositor's Bible Commentary Commentary Hebrews 11:1

"Now faith is assurance of [things] hoped for, a conviction of things not seen." — Hebrews 11:1 (ASV)

Faith is a present and continuing reality, not simply a virtue sometimes practiced in antiquity. It is a living thing, a way of life the writer wishes to see continued in the practice of his readers. Faith, he tells us, is a “being sure” (GK 5712) of things hoped for. The word used here sometimes has a subjective meaning, as NIV translates it (cf. also “confidence” in 3:14). But it may also be used more objectively (“substance”), though this does not seem to be what the writer is saying. There are realities for which we have no material evidence, though they are not the less real for that. Faith enables us to know that they exist and, while we have no certainty apart from faith, faith does give us genuine certainty. Faith is the basis, the substructure of all that the Christian life means, all that the Christian hopes for.

There is a further ambiguity about the word translated “certain” (GK 1793), which usually signifies a “proof” or “test.” Some take it here as “test” and some see its legal use, while many prefer to understand it in much the same sense as the preceding expression (e.g., NIV). If we were to adopt the meaning “test,” then the author is saying that faith, in addition to being the basis of all that we hope for, is that by which we test things unseen. We have no material way of assessing the significance of the immaterial. But Christians are not helpless. We have faith and by this we test all things. “What we do not see” excludes the entire range of visible phenomena which here stand for all things earthly. Faith extends beyond what we learn from our senses. Its tests are not those of the senses, which yield uncertainty.