Voice Note:

Links: Hebrews 11 Matthew Poole’s Commentary

Hebrews 11 Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers

The imagery from today’s voice note is that of a light shining into our understandings, illuminating them and giving us an awareness of that spiritual world that we cannot see with our eyes. So when you are meditating, think about God’s light shining on you, feel the warmth of it, and feel your awareness of the unseen world and spend time wondering what it will look like when our faith becomes sight. Here is the transcript of the voice note:

Transcript: Thank you for listening. I’ve been reading the commentaries on Hebrews 11:1, which is a verse I talked about in another voice note that says, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” So I’ve been doing posts about what faith is and my throat is still hurting so I cannot whisper much so I was going to use this I was going to go through some of these commentaries with you to show you how I study and how we can go over that information. normally if I had my voice I would just read the quotes to you. Since I can’t whisper much, I’m going to use that read-aloud voice that’s there in the Microsoft Edge browser. I use that to help me read through the commentaries because I can, it turns it into like an audiobook so you can listen to it. I can listen to more than I can read, and I really like using audiobooks, so…um…This again this will be Matthew Poole’s Commentary on Hebrews 11:1. We’ll listen to it and then They’ve got some really good information here about what faith is. So this is again Hebrews 11:1 in Matthew Poole’s Commentary. It’s taking me a second here.

The nature of faith, and its acceptableness with God, set forth in the examples of many excellent persons of old time.

Now faith: the Holy Spirit proceeds in this chapter to strengthen the counsel he had given these Hebrews to continue stedfast in the faith of Christ, to the end that they may receive their reward, the salvation of their souls, Hebrews 10:39 1 Peter 1:9; and so beginneth with a description of that faith, and proves it to be effectual to this end, by instances out of all ages of the world before them, wherein the Old Testament believers had found it to be so. The description of it is laid down, Hebrews 11:1; the proof of it in both parts, Hebrews 1:2,3; and the illustration of its power by examples, Hebrews 11:4-40. The particle de shows this is inferred as a discovery of that faith, which is saving or purchasing the soul; which that none of these Hebrews may be mistaken in, he describeth from its effect, and not from its form and essence. Faith is here a Divine fruit of the Spirit, given and wrought by it in his elect, and is justifying and purchasing the soul to glory, John 12:38 Romans 5:1 2 Corinthians 12:9 Ephesians 1:19,20 2:8.

That was reading out some Bible references there. So, what he’s saying here is that he’s telling them to stay steadfast in the faith of Christ that they would that they may receive their reward, the salvation of their souls. And he’s emphasizing that this is saving faith, and he’s talking about that it’s the saving and purchasing of the soul. You’ve heard the Bible verses that you are bought with a price your life is not your own you are bought with a price and So what they’ll do in the commentaries is they’ll break the verse down. They go over the verse so that was going over the phrase, “now faith.” And then this will be about the next phrase in the verse. “is the substance of things hoped for.” So this talks about what faith is.

Here it is a real, present, confident assent of the soul of a believer to the promise of God, (which is the basis or foundation of it), by which the spiritual good things to come, and which fall not under sense, yet with a most vehement and intense desire urged for, are made to have a mental, intellectual existence and subsistence in the soul which exerciseth it, Romans 8:18,26 John 3:36.
okay so that’s really important there. I think it’s a confident assent or confident agreement of the soul of the Christian to the promises of God. So remember, faith has three elements. knowledge, belief, and trust. So when we hear the gospel, that revelation of knowledge about God, as Christians we believe it. So some hear and they do not believe. Christians hear and we believe it and then we put our trust in it. And he’s saying it’s through that, he’s saying, by which spiritual good things to come and which fall not under sense. So he’s talking about our five senses. Sight. Sound. smell, taste, and touch, so the spiritual world is not perceptible with those senses And he’s saying that by faith, the things which we cannot perceive with our senses are made to have a mental, intellectual existence and subsistence in the soul, which exerciseth faith. So that’s what it’s talking about in this verse. These…This is how these commentaries are so helpful. They’ll help you get a deeper understanding of the verse.

So it’s saying, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” So he is saying that by faith the things that you cannot perceive with your senses are made to have an intellectual existence and subsistence in the soul which exercises faith.

This will be the next part of the verse.

The evidence of things not seen: elegkoi is a demonstrative discovery of that which falleth not under sense, such as is scientifical, and puts matters out of question to a man; and therefore is styled by logicians a demonstration: here it notes faith to be that spiritual space which by God’s revelation demonstrates or makes evident all things not seen by sense, or natural reason, without it, as matters of spiritual truth, good and evil in their several kinds, both past, present, and to come, John 17:6,8 Eph 1:17,18.

So again, it’s the evidence of things not seen. So he’s saying it’s a demonstrative well demonstrative discovery. Sometimes in these older commentaries, discovery means revelation. So as a demonstrative, I think it probably means that here. demonstrative revelation…I’m having trouble saying demonstrative. It’s like demonstration demonstrative revelation of things which fall not under sense. And therefore is styled by logicians a demonstration. So it’s a demonstration.

So again, faith is a spiritual space which by God’s revelation demonstrates or makes evident all things not seen by sense.

So that goes along with what we’ve been talking about, seeing things through an eye of faith. It’s not with your physical eyes that you see them. It’s through this revelation of God by faith where I think it might have been in the verse like in Hebrews 10:39 in this commentary 38 or 39 where he says it makes an impression on you. Let me see if I can find that real quick. Well, right here in the next verse it says that Faith made the invisible things of God to subsist with them. Ok I found it. It takes it a second to start playing…the read-aloud voice.

It is the same Divine faith as described before, but as evidencing invisible truths, it communicates a marvellous light to the understanding, and leaves real impressions of it from the word of God, whereby it arriveth unto a most certain knowledge of what is above the power of natural reason to convey, and gives a divine assent to it, such its as is real, clear, sure, and fruitful, different from that of the Gentiles, Romans 1:19-23.
Okay, so he’s saying that faith communicates a marvelous light to the understanding and leaves real impressions of it from the Word of God whereby it arriveth unto a most certain knowledge of what is above the power of natural reason to convey, and gives a divine assent to it.

So, you get that light to your understanding and there are impressions made there of the unseen world where those things have an existence or are subsisting there with you, even though you can’t see them. As I hope I’m saying this right. And then there were some quotes from Ellicott’s commentary on this verse that I thought would be helpful to hear. Okay, these are some quotes from Ellicott’s commentary.

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Hebrews 11, verse 4. If we keep this in mind, It skipped ahead. Let me start over here.

(1) We have seen how the writer approached the subject which is the chief theme of this last division of this Epistle. The coming of the Lord, for judgment upon His adversaries, for salvation to His people, draws nigh. In the midst of dangers and judgments God’s righteous servant shall live, and the ground, of his life is his steadfast faith—if he shrink back, destruction will overtake him. “Our principle of action” (the writer says to his Hebrew readers) “is not shrinking back, but faith. And faith is this. . . .” It has been debated whether that which follows is a definition of what faith is, or in reality a description of what faith does. It is not a complete definition, in the sense of including all the moments of thought which are present in the word as used in the last chapter (Hebrews 11:38) or in this. The “things hoped for” are not mere figments of the imagination; their basis is the word of God.

Then there’s another quote here. Let me find it. Okay. It takes it a second to start reading it.

To adopt Dr. Vaughan’s clear explanation, “Faith is that principle, that exercise of mind and soul, which has for its object things not seen but hoped for, and which, instead of sinking under them as too ponderous, whether from their difficulty or from their uncertainty, stands firm under them—supports and sustains their pressure—in other words, is assured of, confides in and relies on them.” This interpretation yields

So I thought that was a really important quote. Let me look and see. I think there’s another one here. Okay, there’s two more quotes that I’ll play for you here.

Faith, holding to God’s word, gives substance to what that word promises, investing the future blessings with a present existence, treating them as if already objects of sight rather than of hope.

And thus faith becomes “the faculty in man through which the spiritual world exercises its sway over him, and thereby enables him to overcome the world of sin and death.” (Hare, Victory of Faith.).

Okay, so…I hope it helped to hear the quotes read out with that voice. So, again, this is trying to see what faith is. There’s that unseen spiritual world that we can’t see with our eyes, we can’t perceive it with our five senses. So, God shines the light of the gospel. He shines this light into our understanding when we hear the word of God and the things in the invisible world make an impression on us where they have an existence, where they subsist with us, now by faith. They’re real. They’re there. They exist with us here in that way until we’re in heaven and faith becomes sight.

So, um, let me look over this. So, I’m gonna…This is how I study. I look through the commentaries and then you look for definitions in there and then work with the imagery.

Again, really, you’re connecting to that unseen world. It’s real. We’re wondering what it looks like. They’re not, as Ellicott was saying, they’re not as it was he might have been quoting somebody, but it was right there when he was saying it. there are They’re not figments of our imagination, so we’re supposed to be spending time meditating, wondering what heaven looks like, wondering what it’ll be like to be there. So, again, I hope that this worked to use the read-aloud voice and thank you for listening. And I’ll post again sometime soon.