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Our faith in God (and in all things Biblical) has to do with the elements of belief, trust, confidence, assurance, and conviction. Hebrews 11:1 describes the true nature and meaning of Biblical faith: “Now faith is assurance [the substance, KJV] of things hoped for, a conviction [the evidence, KJV] of things not seen.”
Assurance, substance, conviction, and evidence are strong terms of certainty. Evidence and certainty undergird the reality of the spiritual things for which Christians hope, although we cannot now physically see them. This certainty and assurance imply the existence of evidence sufficient to convict one that the things for which he hopes are fact rather than fantasy.
The source of this adequate evidence that warrants our hopes is the Bible: “So belief cometh of hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ” (Rom. 10:17).
How did the message of the New Testament prophets/writers engender faith in first century unbelievers? They presented compelling, undeniable evidence that confirmed their message. The “great salvation” they preached
…was confirmed unto us by them that heard; God also bearing witness with them, both by signs and wonders, and by manifold powers, and by gifts of the Holy Spirit, according to his own will (Heb. 2:3–4).
Thus Nicodemus said to Jesus: “We know that thou art a teacher come from God; for no one can do these signs that thou doest, except God be with him” (John 3:2).
The age of such signs, wonders, and miracles has ceased, so how is faith produced now? The written record of the Biblical miracles provides the very same evidence of the authenticity of the message that the original miracles did. The written record has not changed, so the miracles that confirmed it until its completion will continue to effectively confirm it from now on. The words of John are instructive here:
Many other signs therefore did Jesus in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book: but these are written, that ye may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye may have life in his name (John 20:30–31, emph. added).
John was writing for the benefit of those who had not seen any of Jesus’ signs—which includes us. He therefore wrote a record of some of those signs so that readers might believe in the Christ and be saved. If the written record had confirmatory power before the end of the first century (when John wrote), it has the same power indefinitely.
Biblical writers never ask their readers to believe what they wrote apart from adequate evidence.
[Note: I wrote this article for, and it appeared in the Denton Record-Chronicle, Denton, TX, August 31, 2007.]
Attribution: From thescripturecache.com; Dub McClish, owner and administrator.
