…but the substance is of Christ.
— Colossians 2:17

Very often faith is seen, on the one hand, as something religious, like “I believe in God”, and on the other hand as a work: “I need to strengthen my faith every day, like a muscle”. This usually means reading the Bible, praying, declaring scriptures and so on.

Just as wisdom can be worldly or earthly, human — the kind Scripture calls demonic [Jas.3:15] — so faith can be worldly or demonic. [Jas.2:19] Accordingly, just as there is wisdom that comes down from above, so there is faith from God. As our Lord said: “Have faith in God.” [Mar.11:22] — literally, “have faith of God”. In other words, have the faith that is from God, that has come down from heaven, not an earthly one.

So what is faith? Scripture says that “faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” [Heb.11:1] I want to draw your attention to two words used here: “substance” and “evidence“. In Greek these are the words “hupostasis” (G5287) and “elegchos” (G1650), and they literally mean “reality” and “proof“. That is, faith on the one hand is reality — like the fact that the earth is round, or that a healthy person has two arms and two legs — and on the other hand it is proof, like a marriage certificate or a birth certificate.

Faith is not something religious and incomprehensible — it is reality itself. Something that already exists, even if it is invisible, and the proof is given precisely to confirm its reality. If a person has amnesia, or has forgotten whether he is married or not, his wife can show him the marriage certificate, and everything will fall into place. So what is the proof, the evidence of reality, for us today? The proof — or, as Scripture calls it, the evidence — of the invisible reality is the Holy Spirit, who lives in our hearts. He testifies to such things as “that we are children of God” [Rom.8:16], that God no longer remembers our sins [Heb.10:15,17], and so on.

Well then, what is the reality the Holy Spirit testifies to? The Lord said that when the Holy Spirit came, He would testify of Him. [Jhn.15:26] Christ is that reality and truth to which the Holy Spirit constantly testifies. Outward circumstances or people may testify that we are sinners, but the Holy Spirit testifies that we are righteous in Christ, because Christ is righteous. Pain in the body says that we are sick, but the Holy Spirit testifies that by His stripes we are healed and we are healthy, because He is healthy. Christ is our reality and our actuality, and He is everything we need today.