The Substance of Things Hoped For

When did confidence become synonymous with faith? At what point did a a person's belief in God hinge on how much he or she took at face value, and how little was questioned? Such a question has become almost like a riddle to me these days, as if the answer might come like a punchline, and I would have to nod, scratch my head, and mumble, "Ohhh..." when falls the answer.

As I have shared in earlier posts regarding my own journey in and through faith, I was once taught that Hebrews 11:1, "Now faith is being sure of what he hope for and certain of what we do not see," could be translated by injecting the word "certain" in place of "hope," thus rendering the verse, "Now faith is being certain of what we are certain of and certain of what we do not see." In other words, with faith there are no questions, because if one is certain, one needs not seek clarification.

As is often the case, the NIV sits somewhere between a good translation and a bad one. The NASB works well, especially in the use of the word "conviction." And, as is often the case, the Contemporary English and Holman Christian Standard versions fail miserably in capturing the mystic nature and weight of this single verse. To test most of the translations, go here and have a ball.

It is the King James Version that wins the gold ribbon in my opinion. It reads, "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." Many who read this might shrug and mutter, "What's the difference?" Perhaps I am nit-picking diction, but this version of the verse frees me rather than binds me. I do not mean to imply that I'm trying to manipulate Scripture so that I might have it read the way I want it to. On the contrary, I mean only to rescue Scripture from a Western thought-process that seeks facts over story, definition over mystery.

In our society, in our culture, we desire answers. We want results. We need proof. We bank on reasons. This is a remarkably different mindset than the days of the Old Testament, and even the days of Jesus, where Hellenistic (Greek) culture was already washing across much of the civilized world. Mystery was accepted in OT time. Not all things needed proof. The facts of a story were not nearly as important as the story itself. This is why there is so much vengeance, lament, doubt, and challenging of God in the Psalms and the Prophets. People were not expected to shut up and take everything with no questions, no concerns, no emotion exhaled. Apologists will point to the reason for the forbidden tree in Eden being that God did not want humans to be puppets and therefore blessed us with free choice, but then they will try to boil the movement and existence of God down to provable facts. What kind of freedom of belief is that? I've got news for them (and all of us): it does not, and will never, work that way.

God dwells in mystery, and he does not condemn us when we do not understand, when we doubt, and when we question. He wants us to wrestle with him - why else would he stalk Jacob in the wilderness? He boomed at Job, not for his questions, but because his questions had left the realm of doubt and moved on into despair. And, in the end, that is what the opposite of faith is - despair. Not doubt.

So, let me wrestle with my God. Let me collide with him. Let me question his ways, and seek to understand the sobering truth: that I will never fully understand him. On the other side of these things lies the substance of things hoped for, true faith.