Faith is presented as the Word of God in comparing the text of the O. T. and N. T. (Deut. 30:10-14; Rom. 10:6-8).
Justified by the Faith of Jesus Christ is justified by His knowledge. (Gal. 2:16; Isa. 53:11).
The Spirit of Truth is the Spirit of Faith. (Jn. 16:13,14; 2 Cor. 4:13).
Illustration of what is Faith.
““FAITH is the substance of things hoped for” (Heb. 11:1). The Greek word translated “substance” had a technical meaning in the business world of the first century. It referred to one’s property or effects. It was used in such expressions as “Out of this estate I declare that my husband owes me,” or, “more land than I actually possess,” the italicized words being the translation of the word. It was also used to refer to “the whole body of documents bearing on the ownership of a person’s property, deposited in the archives, and forming the evidence of ownership.”
Moulton and Milligan in their “Vocabulary of the Greek Testament” say of these uses, “These varied uses are at first sight somewhat perplexing, but in all the cases there is the same central idea of something that underlies visible conditions and guarantees a future possession.” Thus they translate “Faith is the title deed of things hoped for.”
To substantiate this usage, there is in “Living Yesterdays,” a delightful brochure by H. R. Minn, the story of a woman named Dionysia. She is described as “a woman of set jaw and grim determination.” It seems that she had lost a case in a local court over a piece of land to which she laid claim. Not satisfied with the decision of a lower court, she determined to take her case to a higher court in Alexandria. She sent her slave to that city, with the legal documents safely encased in a stone box. On the way, the slave lost his life in a fire which destroyed the inn where he had put up for the night. For 2,000 years the sands of the desert covered the ruins of the inn, the charred bones of the slave, and the stone box. Archaeologists have recently uncovered these remains. In the box they found the legal documents. They read the note which this woman had sent to the judge in Alexandria, “In order that my lord the judge may know that my appeal is just, I attach my hypostasis.” That which was attached to this note, she designated by the Greek word translated “substance” in Heb. 11:1. The attached document was translated and found to be the title deed to the piece of land which she claimed as her own possession, the evidence of her ownership.” Kenneth S. Wuest, Bypaths in the Greek New Testament, pg. 18-19.
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