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This is the only place in the Bible where we have what we can call a definition of faith. That faith which is the foundation of all other Christian graces — the title by which we keep our place as Christians — the inward working which has its fruit in good works — the hand by which we lay hold on God and on Christ, is here said to be the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen; and by substance, no doubt, is here meant firm confidence, and by evidence is meant conviction. Faith is the laying hold of the future in the midst of the present, of the unseen in the midst of the seen. It is this which marks the true disciple of Christ, that he walks by faith and not by sight. If the world were what it ought to be, there would be little trial of this faith. But though the world was made very good, and though all that cannot be touched by the influence of our sins is still very good, yet the world, as we have made it, is by no means like the handiwork of God. We see all around us a strange contradiction to what we are told, that justice, and truth, and goodness are the most precious of all things known to man. We see often wrong prevail over right; we see the highest honour constantly given to what we know not to be the highest desert; we see mere strength, whether of body or mind, receive the consideration which ought to be reserved for real goodness. How often do we see plain instances of the success of mere rude strength; sometimes of forwardness; sometimes eve,, of cunning and want of strict truth. Nor is this all. Besides this incessant evidence that good does not govern the world, we are perpetually betrayed in the same thought by a traitor within ourselves. At every moment temptation comes; and the temptation is ever close at hand; the evil consequences of yielding seem far away. However much we may be convinced that in the end obedience to duty is better than sin, we find it hard to remember our conviction at the moment that it is wanted. But in the midst of all this, in spite of what our eyes perpetually tell us, and in spite of the strange forgetfulness which our inclinations perpetually cast over Us, in spite of contradictions without and weakness within, there is a voice from the depths of our own souls that never ceases to repeat that right is really stronger than wrong, and truth is better than falsehood, and justice is surer than injustice. To believe this voice, and to obey it; to surrender to it the guidance of the life in the firm conviction that it will guide us to the true end of our being; to do this is faith. This trusting to the voices that speak within, even when they flatly contradict the voices that speak without, is obviously not peculiar to Christians. The Jew had put into his hands the Word of God as far as it was then written. He was put under a system which God had commanded to be observed. Both in one and in the other he found much that was unintelligible, much that seemed either without a purpose or with a purpose not worth pursuit. Through all that was strange and dark, and even contradictory, it was impossible not to know in his heart that the Spirit which inspired the Bible was the same Spirit as that which sometimes whispered and sometimes thundered in his own conscience, an authority which he could not awe, and could not influence, entering into the very secrets of his soul, and yet no part of himself, and that this Spirit was the voice of God. To throw himself unreservedly on the power which was thus revealed to him, both from within and from without, to accept with unconditional submission the guidance of that Word: of God which was, in fact, the fuller expansion of the message given by conscience, to trust in Him who was thus revealed, in spite of every trial and every temptation; this was the faith of the Jew. Their revelation was imperfect. There still remained one question unanswered. The enemy which is hardest for us to encounter is not after all the sight of this world's wrong and injustice. It is when conscience, at the very moment of demanding our obedience, proclaims also our sinfulness. We would believe, and live by our belief, in spite of all the contradictions and evil with which the world is filled: but we are so weak, so wicked, so hampered with the fetters both of nature and of habit. Will that awful voice, whose authority we dare not doubt, really lead us to peace or to our own destruction? The gospel gave the answer. We read there of One whose life, and words, and death force us to confess that He is the express image of that Father of whom our own conscience, and the prophets of old, have ever told us. We read of One who laid hold on human nature and made it His own, and consecrated it with a Divine power. We read His promises exactly corresponding to that very need which our souls feel every day more keenly. And all this is written down not merely in words but in the deeds of a history such as never man passed through beside, of a history whose every word touches some feeling of our heart, echoes some whisper of our spirit. He bids us surrender ourselves to Him, following His leading, trust in His protection, His power; He promises us by sure, though it may be by slow degrees, but with the certainty of absolute assurance, to join us to His Father and to Himself: He promises not merely to undo some day the riddle of the world, and give the good and the just a visible triumph over the evil and the wrong, but, what we need much more, He promises to give us the victory over sin within ourselves, and to prove to us that God has forgiven us by the infallible token of His having cleansed us. To throw ourselves on these promises, to purify ourselves in the full assurance that Christ's love can carry us through all that we shall encounter, to cling to Christ not only in spite of pain and darkness, and strange perplexity, but in spite of our own sins also, this is our substance of things hoped for, this is our evidence of things not seen, this is Christian faith. This is, St. John tells us, the victory which overcometh the world. This is the power which, both in great things and in small, both in hard trials and in easy, ever supports the disciple of Christ by bringing within his reach all the strength of his Master.

(Bp. Temple.)

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KJV: Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

WEB: Now faith is assurance of things hoped for, proof of things not seen.