Big Healing Book - Hebrews 11:1

Hebrews 11:1:

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

Notes on Hebrews 11:1:

Here is the simplest definition of faith. Faith is having the title deed to something you can’t see. It means that you have something that you can’t see. If you're born again, you have faith because you have eternal life even though you can’t see it. You believe that you have a place reserved for you in heaven even though you have never seen it. That proves that you are able to receive something and know that you have it without seeing it first.

Faith for healing works the same way. You believe you have your healing before you can see your healing. (If you could see it, you wouldn’t need faith; you’d just know it!) Faith is the evidence, or title deed, to the healing that you have but you can’t see yet.

You can see Boardwalk on a Monopoly game board, but you can’t see who owns it by looking at it. The owner is the one who has its title deed.

The greats of faith in Hebrews 11 acted on things that they believed but couldn’t see. If you are in faith, you act on something that you can’t see. You declare that you have your healing before you have any sensory evidence to support your claim.

Some people have taught that the phrase, “Now faith is...” proves that faith only works in the present tense. It proves no such thing. Actually, it proves that the person who said it never looked up the word now in a Greek concordance before doing an elaborate teaching on it. Such carelessness gives opponents of divine healing a legitimate gripe.

There is a Greek word for now that refers to now in a time sense, but this one isn’t it! The Greek word in Hebrews 11:1 (de) has nothing to do with time. If it means “at this moment, as opposed to in the past or future” you will have a hard time explaining a lot of other verses that use this same Greek word. Here are just a few of them, so that you can see what I mean: “Now Moses in the law commanded us” (John 8:5). “Now when these things were thus ordained, the priests went always into the second tabernacle” (Hebrews 9:6). “Now when Jesus was risen early the first day of the week” (Mark 16:9). “Now when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica” (Acts 17:1). “Now when the congregation was broken up...” (Acts 13:43). “Now when this was noised abroad, the multitude came together...” (Acts 2:6). “Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made” (Galatians 3:16). It would be fun to apply this “now” teaching to these verses and see what happens, but I’ll spare you now!

The idea that faith only works now is completely true. But please don’t use the first word of Hebrews 11:1 to prove it!

This verse is also mistakenly used to “prove” that faith is a substance, but the Greek word used there would probably better be translated “confidence.”