Substance and Evidence

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Two nouns, and the sentence puts its whole weight on them. Neither one describes a mood.

Substance is hupostasis, built out of standing and under: the thing that sits beneath a weight and holds it there. Along a shelf of Bibles the English wobbles. Substance in the King James, assurance in most of the rest, confidence and reality in others, and of the ten English Bibles bundled with this app, not one prints a word for feeling. Evidence is elenchos, a courtroom word: the proof that settles a matter and leaves the other side with nothing further to say.

Then the chapter spends thirty-nine verses showing what that looks like in people. By faith Abel offered. By faith Noah prepared an ark. By faith Abraham obeyed, and he went out, not knowing whither he went. Halfway down comes the line nobody puts on a wall: These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off. Died, and had not got it. The same verdict is passed over the whole list at the end, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise.

Take the promise the chapter closes on. God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect. Abel is waiting. Noah is waiting. Abraham, who went out not knowing where he was going, is waiting, and what they are waiting for is what you are waiting for, and it reaches them and you in the same hour. That is what stands underneath a morning when nothing has arrived. Your grip on it was never what made it hold.

Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 290 is Mercy as High as Heaven (Psalm 103:11).

All 365 readings in Daily Manna, Year Two