Commentary on Hebrews and the Catholic Epistles John Calvin
Chapter
Heb 11:1
Hebrews Chapter 11:1
1. Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
1. Porro fides est rerum sperandarum substantia, demonstratio eorum quae non videntur.
1. Now faith, etc. Whoever made this the beginning of the eleventh chapter, has unwisely disjointed the context; for the object of the Apostle was to prove what he had already said that there is need of patience. 202 He had quoted the testimony of Habakkuk, who says that the just lives by faith; he now shows what remained to be proved --- that faith can be no more separated from patience than from itself. The order then of what he says is this, --- ``We shall not reach the goal of salvation except we have patience, for the Prophet declares that the just lives by faith; but faith directs us to things afar off which we do not as yet enjoy; it then necessarily includes patience.'' Therefore the minor proposition in the argument is this, Faith is the substance of things hoped for, etc. It is hence also evident, that greatly mistaken are they who think that an exact definition of faith is given here; for the Apostle does not speak here of the whole of what faith is, but selects that part of it which was suitable to his purpose, even that it has patience ever connected with it. 203 Let us now consider the words.
He calls faith the hypostasis, the substance of things hoped for. We indeed know that what we hope for is not what we have as it were in hand, but what is as yet hid from us, or at least the enjoyment of which is delayed to another time. The Apostle now teaches us the same thing with what we find in Romans 8:24; where it is said that what is hoped for is not seen, and hence the inference is drawn, that it is to be waited for in patience. So the Apostle here reminds us, that faith regards not present things, but such as are waited for. Nor is this kind of contradiction without its force and beauty: Faith, he says, is the hypostasis, the prop, or the foundation on which we plant our foot, --- the prop of what? Of things absent, which are so far from being really possessed by us, 202Griesbach makes the division at the thirty-eighth verse of the last chapter, and this is no doubt what the subject requires. — Ed.
203"Faith is here generally described, not only as it justifies, but also as it acts towards God and lays hold on his promises, works, and blessings revealed in his word, past, present, and future." — Pareus.